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Agent Sonya

Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy

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Agent Sonya

Auteur(s): Ben Macintyre
Narrateur(s): Ben Macintyre
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À propos de cet audio

New York Times Best Seller

The “master storyteller” (San Francisco Chronicle) behind the New York Times best seller The Spy and the Traitor uncovers the true story behind one of the Cold War’s most intrepid spies.

“[An] immensely exciting, fast-moving account.” (The Washington Post)

Named One of the Best Books of the Year by Foreign Affairs • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal

In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her three children and her husband, who worked as a machinist nearby. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life. Her neighbors in the village knew little about her.

They didn’t know that she was a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer. They didn’t know that her husband was also a spy, or that she was running powerful agents across Europe. Behind the façade of her picturesque life, Burton was a dedicated Communist, a Soviet colonel, and a veteran agent, gathering the scientific secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the bomb.

This true-life spy story is a masterpiece about the woman code-named “Sonya”. Over the course of her career, she was hunted by the Chinese, the Japanese, the Nazis, MI5, MI6, and the FBI - and she evaded them all. Her story reflects the great ideological clash of the 20th century - between Communism, Fascism, and Western democracy - and casts new light on the spy battles and shifting allegiances of our own times.

With unparalleled access to Sonya’s diaries and correspondence and never-before-seen information on her clandestine activities, Ben Macintyre has conjured a pause-resisting history of a legendary secret agent, a woman who influenced the course of the Cold War and helped plunge the world into a decades-long standoff between nuclear superpowers.

©2020 Ben Macintyre (P)2020 Random House Audio Idéologies et doctrines Militaire Moderne Politique True Crime XXe siècle Espionnage Union soviétique Impérialisme Russie Socialisme Guerre Mariage Chine Japon impérial Village Autodétermination

Ce que les critiques en disent

“[Ben] Macintyre at once exalts and subverts the myths of spy craft.” (The New Yorker)

“Macintyre is fastidious about tradecraft details. ... [He] has become the preeminent popular chronicler of British intelligence history because he understands the essence of the business.” (David Ignatius, The Washington Post)

“Macintyre writes with the diligence and insight of a journalist, and the panache of a born storyteller.” (John Banville, The Guardian [UK])
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Les plus pertinents
The fictional characters of Le Carré, Flemming, or Deighton have nothing on the real life characters that MacIntyre brings to life in his books. Agent Sonya has now taken her place in my growing library of MacIntyre's books next to Oleg Gordievsky, Paddy Mayne, Kim Philby, and Major Martin. Can't wait for his next book, and I don't care what it will be.

Another tour de force by Macintyre

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His books almost read like novels. He paints a well delineated picture of the spies, their life and times. You get the full context and the jeopardy. Spies are very singular courageous people, who put their lives on the line to support their beliefs about how society to operate.

Macintyre Is the King of writing about spies

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Suspenseful, consuming, and educational at the same time. A romp through some of the most interesting history of the mid-20th century

Fantasy

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While I don't sympathize with Sonya and her life choices, I absolutely admire her resolve and determination. The story itself is amazing and it grabbed me from the beginning to the very end. It made me aware of historic facts I did not know previously. Overall I consider it to be a very well told life story and not simply a spy novel. I couldn't recommend it enough to anyone even remotely interested in 20th century history.

Exceptional story

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Incredible true story, reads like a spy thriller! In addition to what the other reviewers have said I will add that I am not a student of communist or Soviet or WW2 History, and have at best a passing knowledge. The author does a great job circling back to remind the reader of the importance of other actors without derailing rhe pace of the narrative.

I immediately searched for more from Ben MacIntyre

Couldn't Stop Listening

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Those familiar with Ben Macintyre’s previous books such as Operation Mincemeat and Agent Zigzag will find the style here very similar. The author uses an enthralling and exciting spy story about a unique individual to help describe some very important historic events of the 20th century. Agent Sonya/Ursula Kuczynski was, prior to this book, not very well known to the western side of the iron curtain. Klaus Fuchs is probably the better-known protagonist historically. She was and remains a huge hero to the Russians and their allies. Ursula’s primary motivation seems to have been a ruthless dedication to communism. She was undoubtedly very lucky but had an amazing knack of being in the right place at the right time. It is telling that her children, by three separate fathers, Misha/Michael, Nina and Peter, all had had thoughts about whether they were just cover for Ursula’s espionage career. At times she certainly used them as convenient tradecraft devices and just dumped them when necessary, for example by putting Misha in boarding school. However, there was clearly a very loving and altruistic side to her. She was very devoted to her friends, unless they were purged by Stalin, but that was her honed survival instinct coming to the fore. She retained very strong feelings for first husband Rudy and her various spy lovers and other husbands even after the initial passion had left those relationships. An incredible ability to compartmentalize the various aspects of her life was demonstrated throughout as well as unbelievable time management skills. It is an interesting thought experiment to try and imagine what kind of a person she would have been in today’s world. This is certainly up there with his other works and very well read by the author.

Work-life balance gone awry

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I was drawn into Ursula's life from the get go. Ben Macintyre wrote her story so that I could put myself in Agent Sonya's shoes, in her time and place. So that though I know what she did was wrong, I could empathize with many of her decisions.

This was an excellent read.

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Every bit as exciting as a fictional spy thriller- only it actually happened! The reading of it by the author was excellent as well. I wasn’t familiar with Macintyre before now but will look him out in future.

Incredible Story

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Agent Sonya's life was one of tumult and change, so worthy of a biography. Ben MacKintyre provides a thorough account of Ursula's experiences told in such a way that it was almost fiction. I am inspired now to search for a radio in a forest in England.

A proper main character

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I couldn’t get past four chapters of this endless description of pointless minutia that could interest nobody. I kept waiting for the exciting plot twist of a nine page regalement of her trimming her toenails, but alas, it never came.

Not a single person referenced in this book, thus far, except for Rudy, has any redeeming qualities that would cause me to want to learn more about them. Everyone in this book is a massive twat. The hypocrisy, thick.

The main subject is a silly privileged child in desperate need for a cause, so she blindly accepts a tribe built upon pillars of intolerance and autocracy, just to be a part of it. An asshole who’s incapable of looking at the bigger picture and the consequences of working for a regime that killed enough people to make the Nazis look like amateurs.

You’d be better off taking the money you would’ve spent on this book, gently tossing it in the toilet, taking a giant crap on the money, sticking your head inside said toilet, and flushing it until you’re drowned.

I honestly think this writer was paid per word because nobody would fill their pages with insufferable triviality otherwise. I am a huge fan of nonfiction, Cold War literature, and have devoured many a book, but this festering turd was insufferable. It wasn't helped by the bland manner in which the narrator spoke these bland words.

Do you enjoy endless droning of pointless minutia? This book is for you.

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