“I’ve learned that Americans are hard in ways I couldn’t have imagined and find absolutely exhausting. To have all these constitutionally protected freedoms is enviable, but it also means you have to respect them, uphold them, and fight for them. “–Anya, A Shadow in Moscow
This is a good old fashioned cold war spy novel. It is a dual timeline and point of view story that revolves around two female spies. Austrian Ingrid Bauer, on her own after losing her parents near the end of WWII, marries a Russian embassy worker and returns with him to Russia. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that things are not as they seem, including her quiet husband. She suspects he works for the KGB. In an effort to make the world a safer place, she becomes a spy for British intelligence.
Fast forward to 1980 Moscow where Anya Kadinova, recently returned from attending college in the United States, becomes increasingly disillusioned with the country of her birth. Her work in a Soviet military lab gives her access to information the United States and other western countries would be extremely interested in. After the death of her best friend, she chooses to pass information to the United States.
Ingrid and Anya’s paths cross after a traitor at the highest levels gives the KGB a list of western informants and their lives will never be the same again.
This is a gripping story that illustrates the tension and fear that permeated the cold war as well as the risks taken by many to make the world a safer place.