Play Book Tag discussion

The Spy and the Traitor is the story of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB officer who became the most important spy for the British during the Cold War. He provided insight into the thinking of key leaders, and this may well have been crucial to preventing the nuclear war we all feared. While a lot of the book took place during my lifetime, his name was not at all familiar to me. I think my espionage reading was stuck in WWII fiction.

The book starts out at a relatively slow pace with a great deal of detail about all aspects of his life, his family, and the steps in his career. We also learned about all the different players on both sides (or all three sides if you count the U.S.). I sometimes wondered - do I really need to remember this person? The author usually gave little reminders to help. The development and steps in the Pimlico play were crucial. Just as my attention started to flag, the pace started to pick up. By the last third I was completely glued to the book and you couldn't have pulled me away. The tension was very strong, because I knew it was real.

One of my favorite topics in the book had to do with motivation. They discussed this a lot. What are the primary reasons that someone will agree to give information to the other side? (My husband and I added a letter to one of their acronyms.) Money is an obvious reason for many spies, but Oleg had more idealistic motivations. He came from a KGB family and he knew a lot about the things that they had done. This was very interesting to me. I enjoyed following all the steps in the process as the players tried to gauge one another's intentions. The missed signs and mistaken judgments were sometimes funny and sometimes terrifying. Overall it was a very good read.

I really like Macintyre's writing and have most of his books on my shelves-this one has been there since 2018-time to pick it up I think.

When i read a story like this, motivation is always something I think about-would Ihave done that? Was it really worth it?

A few other good books similar to this one, that you might enjoy:

MacArthur's Spies: The Soldier, the Singer, and the Spymaster Who Defied the Japanese in World War II

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies

Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler