Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy

A slim, graceful mother and her three children lived in a little home in a quiet village in the English Cotswolds in 1942, together with her husband, a machinist who worked nearby. Ursula Burton spoke English with a little foreign accent and was amiable but reticent. She gave every impression of being a modest, humble woman. The villagers didn't know anything about her.

Her status as a senior Soviet intelligence operative was unknown to them. They were unaware that she was managing strong operatives around Europe and that her spouse was also a spy. Under the surface of her idyllic existence, Burton was a seasoned agent, a Soviet colonel, and a committed Communist who was collecting scientific secrets that would allow the Soviet Union to develop the bomb.

This real-life spy tale centers on a lady known only as "Sonya." She was sought after throughout her career by the FBI, MI5, MI6, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Nazis, all of whom she managed to elude. Her narrative sheds new light on the espionage conflicts and shifting allegiances of our own times while reflecting the grand ideological struggle of the twentieth century—between Communism, Fascism, and Western democracy.

With unrivaled access to Sonya's letters and diaries, as well as never-before-seen details on her covert operations, Ben Macintyre has penned a history of a legendary secret agent—a woman who helped set off a decades-long standoff between nuclear superpowers and altered the course of the Cold War.