This is an incredibly sad book. It’s one long chronicle of lying, deceit, betrayal, abandonment, loneliness, confusion, and bitterness. You really won’t like Jack. Not for most of the story anyway. Every decision he makes is entirely self-centered. He betrays everyone that comes into his life. There are many situations, relationships that are not good. Many are sinful. They are part of the story and he speaks of them as delicately as possible. Then! Then he met someone who he couldn’t betray. Slowly, oh so slowly he starts to live for someone else.
The last few chapters are what make this book worth reading. Without them, it would just be the memoirs of a low-level spy. They give the meaning to both this book and his life and are a beautiful example of God pursuing a sinner.
I received a free Advanced Review Copy of this book through NetGalley and Tyndale House Publishers. Its content and form were not final. But, there was one paragraph that was so powerful and important, that it brings the rest of the book into the proper perspective and makes it worth reading. So let me recommend that you read it.

Fancy a good spy story? Then you won’t want to miss Deep Undercover: My Secret Life and Tangled Alliances as a KGB Spy in America — by Jack Barsky

One decision can end everything . . . or lead to unlikely redemption. On October 8, 1978, a Canadian national by the name of William Dyson stepped off a plane at O’Hare International Airport and proceeded toward Customs and Immigration. Two days later, William Dyson ceased to exist.The identity was a KGB forgery, used to get one of their own—a young, ambitious East German agent—into the United States.T he plan succeeded, and the spy’s new identity was born: Jack Barsky. He would work undercover for the next decade, carrying out secret operations during the Cold War years . . . until a surprising shift in his allegiance challenged everything he thought he believed.

Deep Undercover by Jack Barsky is his memoir of his very interesting life of a spy for the KGB. Barsky does a very thorough job of detailing his childhood and adolescent experiences that led to him becoming a spy in the United States for Soviets. While I found the beginning of the book a bit slow moving, things certainly picked up once he was involved in his training and finally sent on a mission to the United States. And the story of how he got out of his commitment to the Soviets and eventually found true peace and satisfaction in God is a story not to be missed. This was a very interesting read into a job that very few people know anything about.


I was provided a complementary copy of this title by Tyndale House Publishers.

Great story depicting a spy in the US. The story flowed so smoothly with such a fascinating account of his life.
The book grabbed you immediately and kept you with him the entire book.

It has been awhile since I've picked up a book and couldn't put it down. That is exactly what happened with "Deep Undercover," by Jack Barsky. I saw an email with it listed as a new release, read the summary, and watched a couple of You Tube videos with Jack Barsky; then decided I was willing to pay full price for this book--that doesn't happen often either.

I started reading it as soon as I got home and reluctantly went to bed and work the next day but then picked right back up again when the kids went to bed. By 10:00 PM I was three-quarters through and had to finish it. I went to bed at midnight that night with another book to add to my "Books Read in 2017" list.

The story of Jack Barsky would make a great movie. It's not just another spy autobiography. It's the story of a rough childhood, paired with an intellectual student looking for acceptance from women, mentors, and later his own children. I can't really give too much of a review of this book without spoiling it for you. So I'll just say it was probably the spy story line that got me hooked, but it was the redemption story that made me finish this book.

A while ago I reviewed Spook Street by Mick Herron, and when I came across Deep Undercover, I thought that a book about real life espionage would be an interesting read.

Jack Barsky’s real name is Albrecht Dittrich, an East German who was studying to be a chemistry professor, when in 1970 the East German authorities asked him to become a spy. The KGB trained him to be an undercover agent in America, whose mission was to become integrated into American society and get close to the national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Once in America, Barsky was basically left to fend for himself. His first job was as a bicycle courier, with night school learning to be a computer programmer, working his way up in a life insurance company through diligence and talent. His cover was compromised in 1988, but he refused to leave America because of his American family and was eventually caught by the FBI. Barsky provided the FBI with information about his undercover activities and was never charged with espionage.

Deep Undercover shows the reality of espionage and particularly living undercover. Barsky had to work extremely hard to make a living, for a long time through menial jobs – a huge contrast from his comfortable academic life in East Germany. For years, his life in America is lonely and isolated. I wondered how he managed to overcome the emotion of leaving his wife in East Germany, only meeting her for short visits every few years and then seeing his son growing up, regarding him as an occasional uncle rather than his father. Also, I wasn’t sure how he managed the emotions of a new family in America, knowing that he had a wife and child in East Germany. It seems like compartmentalising your life is an essential ability for an undercover spy.

Although Barsky comes across as an arrogant person, and at time lacking in any kind of empathy, you can see that deep down he’s a genuine person. He’s pretty frank about his dysfunctional relationships, excessive drinking and his redemption through his conversion to Christianity.

It’s a cliché in reviews of espionage novels that “this book shows what it’s really like to be a spy” and few of them actually do that. What Deep Undercover does and does really well is show Barsky’s real life as a sleeper agent, warts and all. His training programme was based on a “sink or swim” principle, which follows on to his whole undercover life in America, where assistance from the Centre is perfunctory at best. For many years Barsky is lonely and financially hard up. It says a lot about his inner strength that he managed to hold everything together for so many years. Barsky’s life deep undercover lacks glamour and there’s no sugar coating at all. Perhaps one thing that is absent is anything about a fear of being exposed or caught, which is a constant in other similar memoirs that I’ve read. Perhaps he compartmentalised that too and ignored that fear, or maybe his self-confidence meant that he didn’t worry about it.

Final verdict – a readable book, which I’d strongly recommend

This was a very interesting memoir of the authors life as a spy and becoming a Christian. I really enjoyed how he did over dramatize his life as a spy and pointed out that sometimes it was just like anyone else life except what he did behind the scenes. This was a very interesting book to read and I highly recommend it.

Albrecht Gerlinde (AKA Jack Barsky) discloses his memoir as a Soviet Union spy living undercover in America. Through his extraordinary experiences we learn that it is our relationships that determine who we are, and who we become. We are given answers as to how someone becomes a spy in the first place, intensive training they receive, what their life is like living undercover, and what happens when they are caught. I felt heartbroken reading about Albrecht's upbringing, and can't imagine how it must have felt to abandon everyone he loved in order to serve his country in what he thought was a heroic mission acting as a spy. Deep Undercover is a riveting, page-turning, fascinating, poignant adventure. If you like the Bourne movies, and great spy novels, you'll love this. Happy reading!

“You must come home,” he whispered, “or else you are dead.”

DEEP UNDERCOVER is the tale of former KGB spy-turned-American patriot Jack Barsky. Of course that name is actually the name the KGB helped him get from a dead person. They arranged for a birth certificate, making it possible for Barsky to live and work in the U.S.

The author describes in detail his childhood in East Germany, academic achievement, and eventually his recruitment away from his assumed career in chemistry. It all sounded so exciting—and of course Jack was a true communist faithful.

Jack describes how he was trained in spy craft such as, Shortwave Radio/Morse code, Cryptography, and Secret Writing. He also learned about “dead-drop” operations, where he could send/receive messages to “The Center,” short for Moscow. Although Jack did well at learning English, his trainer explained that language was only part of it: “You must also learn how to think and feel like an American. Imagine living in their big houses and driving one of those huge cars. In order to be successful in the United States, you must think big. You must undergo a complete metamorphosis.” He was given a complete “legend” to memorize, so that he could fake his new identity.

In America, Jack quickly got a job as a bike messenger. He was quick at the job, and began earning money to support him. He comically started his hunt for proper identification by getting an ID card at a local museum. From there, it was a library card, and so on.

Moscow wanted their young spy to get a college degree. He did so well at college that he had to give the valedictorian address. The dean would not allow him to refuse: “The irony of a KGB agent delivering the valedictory at an American business school did not escape me.”

Jack’s true identity slowly leaked out, and Moscow sent him urgent messages to prepare to leave America. The coded message read, “PREPARE FOR URGENT DEPARTURE. WE HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE THAT YOUR COVER HAS BEEN BLOWN. YOU ARE IN SEVERE DANGER.”

Jack had a new life in American—and especially a young daughter whom he adored. He tried to ignore the summons, but Moscow would have none of it. When Jack ignored the warning, another agent warned him, “You must come home, or else you are dead.”

The author thought of a good excuse—he couldn’t leave the U.S. because he had contracted AIDS! And they fell for it: “I had succeeded in deceiving the mighty KGB.”

It was years later that the FBI finally closed in on Jack. They had spoken to the mother of the REAL Jack Barsky, and learned that the real Jack had passed away decades earlier. It was now clear to Agent Reilly that “they had their fish on the hook; but they had no idea how big that fish might be.” When finally detained by the FBI, Jack was cooperative, and the FBI was merciful. In exchange for Jack’s cooperation and intelligence, they allowed him and his family to remain in the U.S.

Barsky’s Christian conversion is actually a small, but meaningful part of the book. Jack had no intention of becoming a Christian, and told a colleague, “You may believe whatever you like, but please don’t think for one minute that you’ll make a convert out of me.” Nevertheless, he investigated the claims of Christianity, and slowly began to see the light. He recalls that it was like a seed being planted: “For the first time in my life, I was open to the possibility that Jesus Christ was not only a special human being but also God’s son , who had been crucified and had risen from the dead. You might say the door to faith was ajar.”

The author sums up his life in America this way: “No matter what challenges we face in our nation, as long as the beacon of freedom still shines, that’s where my home will be.” Reflecting on his conversion experience, Jack puts it this way: “Christ has taken away much of my pain, and I can live out my life on earth knowing that my sins, committed knowingly or unknowingly, have been forgiven by the enormity of his sacrifice. That is where I have landed. I am finally home.”

All in all, I found DEEP UNDERCOVER to be an interesting, but sometime sad read. It was a little depressing to read about the sad state of Eastern Europe after World War II. Perhaps the most interesting part was the account of the young spy trying to make his way in America without rousing suspicion.

In a nice touch, the Afterword is by the FBI agent who confronted the author, and later became friends with the former spy. The agent suggests that “our country could use more people like Jack Barsky.”

Advance Review Copy courtesy of the publisher.

3.5 stars

This is the fascinating true story of German-born Albrecht Dittrich, who becomes a spy with the KGB and settles in America with the name Jack Barsky.

He recounts his childhood, his university years, and how he was recruited by the KGB. He then tells of his training and mission and how he ultimately leaves the KGB after over 10 years of service for a "normal" life in America - all before eventually becoming a Christian.

I really loved hearing about his spy training and the various techniques he employed to obtain information and stay under the radar! It was also interesting to learn more about the Soviet Union and the KGB in general, since I haven't studied these things before.

The beginning and ending were a little slow, and there was some repetition throughout the book. Since I was reading an advanced copy from the publisher, those issues will hopefully be corrected in editing.

My largest concern is probably a phrase that Barsky's current wife told him before they were married and before he was a Christian:

"You are already a Christian; you just don't know it."

Barsky did seem to understand that becoming a Christian - surrendering one's own will to the will of Christ - is a conscious decision one makes and that this phrase his now-wife spoke to him is incorrect; that is why I was so confused when he kept repeating this phrase and stating it was prophetic.

I strongly believe that sentiments of this nature are incredibly dangerous. They imply a certain relativity to salvation. The true Gospel dictates that it is impossible for a person to be a Christian without knowing it.

I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

Deep Undercover: My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America by Jack Barsky was received direct from the publisher. Being a child of the Cold War, I grew up hearing stories Soviet Spies in the US and how at any minute they could be activated via code word in a newspaper, a telephone call, etc. Now we have shows like the Americans to show us even more of how it could have been. This book shows how a self centered man, Soviet Spy, who one day has an epiphany, can change his outlook and our outlook on him. Some say it is sad, some say it is late, as many dont remember or were alive during the days described her. I say if you want to relive the Cold War, in your mind, not "for real," this is a good book to do so with.

3 Stars