Mother, Lover, Spy

Agent Sonya is the story of Ursula Kuczynski. Sonya grew up in a home of communist sympathizers. She embraced communism at an early age becoming a spy for the Soviet Union.

She spied for the Soviet Union in Switzerland, Shanghai China, and the United Kingdom. Married more than once, having lovers and children by 3 men, she often struggled with being a mother and a spy. She used her marriage and her children in her spy work. She often hid items for her spy activities in a baby carriage, a grocery basket, and once a teddy bear was used as a hiding place.

The book tells Sonya’s story, but it also tells the stories of each person mentioned in the book. It has much historical and technical information as well as the stories of each person mentioned. The book did bog down for me in May places, it was a bit tedious at times. I did enjoy Sonya’s story, not so much all the other stories in between. The technical information was over my head and not interesting to me.

I read the book to the end because I wanted to find out what happened to Sonya. I did appreciate the concluding remarks at the end telling how each of the main characters ended up.

Thanks to Ben Macintyre, Crown Publishing, and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of the book in return for an honest review.