Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia by Marc Favreau
Like the title suggests, lots of stories about spies! I think many kids go through a stage where they want to be a spy or at least play a game where they are spies. I remember thinking I was an excellent spy, but everyone ‘caught’ me within minutes. I was awful, just awful. I guess I always had a terrified look on my face. I even went to a murder mystery dinner once, and I asked so many questions that the entire table turned on me and accused me of being the murderer.
A lot of the stories are ones that you have probably seen in movies. The spy goes to a location, sets down a briefcase, then a second spy sits next to them and sets down their own briefcase. After a certain amount of time, one spy stands to leave, grabbing the other’s briefcase. It sounds so silly, but I guess it worked. There is also a lot of double-agent stuff going on in this book. I don’t think you can ever tell who is truly loyal to whom. Within the first thirty pages, multiple spies were working for one government and spying for another. I couldn’t handle that kind of secrecy.
If you like spy stories, then you are, of course, going to love this book. I do like spy novels, but there were a lot of spies in this, and it was hard to keep everything straight. I think I need to know more about the history surrounding these spies. Even though it was a little confusing with all the history at the time (I had to sit and think back on a few classes here and there), I really enjoyed hearing about everything that was going on! There was one spy who worked for MI6 but then started spying for the KGB. Soon, MI6 asked him to find KGB spies to serve as double agents. So, he was working for MI6 but spying for the KGB and pretending to get KGB members to work for MI6. How does anyone keep this straight? At this point, everyone is telling everyone everyone’s secrets. There were so many tales of spies turning on spies and spying for other countries. I would never trust anyone.
There were also so many operations starting to try and get as much information as possible. Like Operation Gold where they dug a tunnel under Soviet territory to tap into their communications. It makes you wonder what is going on in today’s world of spying. I actually don’t want to think too much about that.
Four out of Five Magical Coffee Cups
Literary Coffee 