Brian Bollen's Blog

Agent Sonya: Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy

Title: Agent Sonya: Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy

Author: Ben Macintyre

Publisher: Viking

Pages: 377 including afterword, notes and index

Price: £25.00

Format: Hardback

Published: September 17 2020

ISBN: 9780241408506

I’ve read and very much enjoyed several books by Ben Macintyre, including Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat. At first, second and third glance, Agent Sonya is a worthy addition to his body of work.

Despite a longstanding interest in books about WWII and associated matters - which began with reading Commando comics, The Wooden Horse and Reach for the Sky in my childhood years and, seeing The Great Escape in glorious Technicolor on a big cinema screen in 1967, when I was about 10 - I have never before heard of Mrs Burton, codenamed Sonya.

The blurb explains that she was born Ursula Kuczynski, was a German Jew, a dedicated Communist, a colonel in Russia’s Red Army and a highly trained spy.

Inter alia, we learn that she planned an assassionation attempt on Adolf Hitler, spied on the Japanese in Manchuria and helped the Soviet Union build the atom bomb.

Her three children had different fathers, one of whom was also a secret agent. Oh, and she baked excellent cakes and had at least one holiday in a Butlin’s camp on England’s south coast. One has to ask why her story has never been told until now.

Ben Macintyre is a good writer, and as a professional writer I don’t say that of many people.

Here’s an early example, from the second chapter, Whore of the Orient, of Sonya/Ursula’s first impressions of Shanghai:

“The first thing that struck Ursula was the smell, the pure hot stink of poverty that wafted up from Shanghai harbour, a miasma of sweat, sewage and garlic….Encircling the ship in floating tubs were beggars, moaning cripples with stumps for arms and legs, children with festering wounds, some blind, some with hairless scab-encrusted heads.”

I suspect some of this came from a diary, but it demonstrates an eye for what my first editor often referred to as the telling adjective, and it whets the appetite for more. There is a picture later in the book, of at least part of the scene, just in case the words don’t do it for you, but I think the word picture is better than the photograph.

There are others, too (spoiler alert), including one of Chinese Communists being executed during the White Terror in Shanghai in 1927, something I had never previously even heard mentioned. It is not an image for the faint-hearted.

The pictures in general are very good, including one of a Russian stamp featuring the notorious British spy, Kim Philby, and Hitler in his favourite restaurant in Munich, Osteria Bavaria, looking almost human, but not quite.

And it might sound a bit silly, but I particularly enjoyed reading the Afterword: The Lives of Others, in which the author gives a brief summary of what happened next to many of the characters featured in the body of text.

This is something more writers should consider doing, especially when there are so many characters involved and it can be easy to lose track of who did what, where and when.

I commend this book, the only one I have ever read that has a dead-letter box in the quiet quintessentially English market town of Banbury, for heaven’s sake. And I suggest that it will make an excellent gift on a certain day in December, even if, as seems likely, the half-witted Muppets currently holding office in the UK government effectively cancel Christmas, in a way that Oliver Cromwell, Adolf Hitler, Uncle Joe Stalin and Chairman Mao could never have dreamt of.

Put it on your list, either to receive or to give: Agent Sonya: Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy, by Ben Macintyre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plague Fiction

Mrs B and I watched another very interesting cobbled-together documentary on BBC Four comparing Covid-19 with the bubonic plague the other evening. If you haven't seen it, it makes great viewing, even reassuring viewing, not least because it puts Covid-19 in some much-needed long-term perspective.

The Plague in the mid-14th century killed 50% to 60% of the population of Europe, compared to the statistically meaningless tiny percentage dying with Covid-19 today (note: I always make a distinction between dying of, and dying with).

Deutsche Börse acquires majority position in Quantitative Brokers

Deutsche Börse is acquiring a majority interest in Quantitative Brokers, an independent provider of advanced execution algorithms and data-driven analytics for global futures, options and interest rate markets. The fintech company has operations in New York, London, Sydney and Chennai.

Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement

The US Federal Reserve has issued a statement underlining its commitment to using its full range of tools to support the US economy in thess challenging times, thereby promoting its maximum employment and price stability goals.

HSBC appointed securities services provider for the first ETF under the authorised VCC scheme in Singapore

HSBC has been appointed as the custodian and fund administrator for CSOP INVESTMENTS VCC - ICBC CSOP FTSE Chinese Government Bond Index ETF (exchange-traded fund). This is the first ETF launched under the authorised Variable Capital Company (VCC) structure in Singapore. CSOP is officially offering their ETF on Monday, September 21 after getting the approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).