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Ben MacIntyre - Agent Sonya (2nd Hand Hardback)
SKU B002995
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Original price
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Synopsis
A Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller.
The incredible story of the greatest female spy in history, from one of Britain's most acclaimed historians
In a quiet English village in 1942, an elegant housewife emerged from her cottage to go on her usual bike ride. A devoted wife and mother-of-three, the woman known to her neighbours as Mrs Burton seemed to epitomise rural British domesticity.
However, rather than pedalling towards the shops with her ration book, she was racing through the Oxfordshire countryside to gather scientific intelligence from one of the country's most brilliant nuclear physicists. Secrets that she would transmit to Soviet intelligence headquarters via the radio transmitter she was hiding in her outdoor privy.
Far from a British housewife, 'Mrs Burton' - born Ursula Kuczynski, and codenamed 'Sonya' - was a German Jew, a dedicated communist, a colonel in Russia's Red Army, and a highly-trained spy. From planning an assassination attempt on Hitler in Switzerland, to spying on the Japanese in Manchuria, and helping the Soviet Union build the atom bomb, Sonya conducted some of the most dangerous espionage operations of the twentieth century. Her story has never been told - until now.
Agent Sonya is the exhilarating account of one woman's life; a life that encompasses the rise and fall of communism itself, and altered the course of history.
Details
- Format : Standard 2nd Hand Hardback with Dust Jacket
- Condition : As New
- Category : Non-Fiction - Autobiography & Biography
- Published : 2020 (Viking - 1st Edition, 1st Printing)
- ISBN : 9780241408506
- SKU : B002995
- PPC : SP600gm
- RRP : £25 (Unclipped)
- Quantity Available : 1 only.
Includes B&W & Colour Photographs.
External Reviews
'Macintyre does true-life espionage better than anyone else' - John Preston.
'Macintyre has found a real-life heroine worthy of his gifts as John le Carre's nonfiction counterpart' - New York Times.
'This book is classic Ben Macintyre . . . quirky human details enliven every page . . . it is Macintyre's own vivid retelling of her perilous professional, personal and political life that make Agent Sonya such an accessible spy story.' - Spectator.
'His best book yet' - The Times.
'Another year, another blockbuster real-life spy tome. Think John le Carre at his best - but fact not fiction.' - Daily Express.
'He . . . spins gloriously through one of the most extraordinary private lives of the 20th century.' - Daily Mail, Book of the Week.
The Author
Ben Macintyre is a columnist and Associate Editor on The Times. He has worked as the newspaper’s correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. He is the author of nine previous books including Agent Zigzag, shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Galaxy British Book Award for Biography of the Year 2008, and the no. 1 bestsellers A Spy Among Friends, Operation Mincemeat, Double Cross and SAS: Rogue Heroes. In 2019, The Spy and the Traitor, which tells the story of double KGB agent Oleg Gordievsky and was a No.1 Sunday Times Bestseller and shortlisted for the Ballie Gifford prize and National Book Awards. In 2020, Agent Sonya: Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy told the story of Ursula Kuczynski - codename Sonya - the greatest female spy of the 20th Century. Ben’s new book Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle, will be published on the 15th September 2022, telling the astonishing true story of history’s most infamous prison.