Publication Date: June 13, 2023
In the thick of the Cold War, a betrayal at the highest level risks the lives of two courageous female spies: MI6’s best Soviet agent and the CIA’s newest Moscow recruit.
Vienna, 1954
After losing everyone she loves in the final days of World War II, Ingrid Bauer agrees to a hasty marriage with a gentle Soviet embassy worker and follows him home to Moscow. But nothing within the Soviet Union’s totalitarian regime is what it seems, including her new husband, whom Ingrid suspects works for the KGB. Inspired by her daughter’s birth, Ingrid risks everything and reaches out in hope to the one country she understands and trusts—Britain, the country of her mother’s birth. She begins passing intelligence to MI6, navigating a world of secrets and lies, light and shadow.
Moscow, 1980
A student in the Foreign Studies Initiative, Anya Kadinova finishes her degree at Georgetown University and boards a flight home to Moscow, leaving behind the man she loves and a country she’s grown to respect. Though raised by dedicated and loyal Soviet parents, Anya soon questions an increasingly oppressive and paranoid regime at the height of the Cold War. Then the KGB murders her best friend and Anya chooses her side. Working in a military research lab, she relays Soviet plans and schematics to the CIA in an effort to end the 1980s arms race.
The past catches up to the present when an unprecedented act of treachery threatens all agents operating within Eastern Europe, and both Ingrid and Anya find themselves in a race for their lives against time and the KGB.
Although separated by 26 years, two female spies risk their lives with the KGB hot on their trail. Author Katherine Reay delivers an interesting tale full of treachery in A Shadow in Moscow.
Using dual storylines, the author begins in Austria at the end of World War II with Ingrid. Having lost her parents to the Nazis, she’s determined to keep their dream alive. Although married to a Soviet and living in Russia, Ingrid funnels intelligence to the British, creating a double life filled with shadows and deceit.
The storyline shifts to 1980, where a young Russian woman named Anya finds new opportunities during an exchange program in the United States. After returning home, a series of events lead her to work covertly with the CIA.
Both women risk everything as they try to keep going, even as the danger mounts. No one is safe from the KGB, especially when those you trust turn out to be double agents.
I love the unexpected connection between Ingrid and Anya and how the author weaves their relationship into the story. While these two characters are fictional, they represent many real women who took risks during the Cold War in the hopes of a better future.
A Shadow in Moscow brings history to life through the actions of two female spies and the challenges they faced at the hands of the KGB.
Katherine Reay is a national bestselling and award-winning author who has enjoyed a lifelong affair with books. She publishes both fiction and nonfiction, holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University, and currently lives outside Chicago, Illinois, with her husband and three children.
