Our Woman in Moscow(120)
For those readers interested in learning more about the Cambridge spy ring, I can enthusiastically recommend the exhaustively researched Enemies Within: Communists, the Cambridge Spies, and the Making of Modern Britain by Richard Davenport-Hines, as well as Ben Macintyre’s thorough and intensely readable narrative of the Kim Philby case, A Spy Among Friends. For a gripping account of Donald Maclean’s life and espionage career, reach for A Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean by Roland Philipps, which meticulously captures the complex psychology of Maclean and his tortured marriage.
A final technical note: the Soviet intelligence services combined, split apart, and recombined in dozens of different incarnations over the first few decades of Soviet history, each time with a different name. For the sake of simplicity, I refer to the pre–Second World War agency as the NKVD and the postwar agency as the KGB familiar to Cold Warriors, although it didn’t actually take on this final form until 1954. My apologies to the historical sticklers for this narrative convenience.
I wrote much of Our Woman in Moscow during the intense stress of the coronavirus shutdown in the spring of 2020, while juggling the physical and emotional needs of my large family all gathered together for weeks on end. For her patience and understanding (and timely care packages of artisan chocolate) I can’t thank my editor, Rachel Kahan, enough. In fact, the entire team at William Morrow came through like heroes during this abrupt change of plan and working conditions—Tavia Kowalchuk, Brittani Hilles, Alivia Lopez, and all my other champions in sales and marketing and production, you are so deeply appreciated! Special gratitude is due to my eagle-eyed copyeditor, Laurie McGee, who kept my timelines straight and my hyphenation in order. My warmest thanks as well to my superstar agent, Alexandra Machinist, and her assistant Lindsey Sanderson, for handling the business side of things so ably while I tangled myself in knots of Cold War history.
As for my dearest, loveliest lovelies Karen White and Lauren Willig, there are no words to thank ewe for all your support and encouragement during the writing of this book. Certain things only the three of us shall ever know. One truth we’ve proved for sure, though—friendship knows no distance.
As always, my deepest thanks to my family for your love and patience as I made my endless daily circuits from kitchen to laundry room to writing chair.
To my readers, whose kind messages and thoughtful reviews revived my spirits at every low ebb, I can’t begin to express my gratitude. This book wouldn’t exist without you.
About the Author
BEATRIZ WILLIAMS is the bestselling author of thirteen novels, including The Summer Wives, A Hundred Summers, The Golden Hour, and Her Last Flight. A native of Seattle, she graduated from Stanford University and earned an MBA in finance from Columbia University, then spent several years in New York and London as a corporate strategy consultant before turning her attention to fiction. She lives with her husband and four children near the Connecticut shore, where she divides her time between writing and laundry.
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