"All the time it meant guarding her tongue and never relaxing or being herself. Then there was the guilt. She genuinely liked some of the comrades and they seemed to like her. How shocked they'd be if they discovered she was a spy. On some days it felt like a huge act of bravery simply to get up and go to work".
"She'd be working for her country, that's what she told herself. She was being offered the chance of a lifetime, the opportunity to uncover secrets that no one else had cracked".
A Beautiful Spy by Rachel Hore tells the story of Minnie Gray, an ordinary young woman from Edgbaston who becomes one of the bravest seceret agents working for the British government.
Minnie's background is pretty ordinary: middle-class, dyed-in-the-wool Conservative, she works as a typist. Her job at the Automobile Association is a respectable position, but she feels stuck. "Life should be opening out. Instead nothing seemed to change. Her work offered no path of progress and she couldn't afford to leave home even if she wanted".
Everyone in her social circles expects her to find a husband and start family, but she has other ideas about her future. When an opportunity arises to work for the British Intelligence, she grabs it - finally this is something important, and her new job will make a difference.
She is recruited as MI5 infiltration agent by Maxwell Knight, or M, as he is known in his circles. Minnie moves to London and becomes a member of the Friends of the Soviet Union in 1932. Due to the nature of her job, she is not allowed to tell anyone what she does.
"No one else of her acquiantance knew she was a spy. Only he [M] understood the daily pressure she was under, appearing to live a normal existece while conducting parallel secret one.
In the different areas of her life her friends and family, her colleagues at the charity and her comrades at the FSU all saw a different facet of her, but not one of them could know the nature of her most important work".
Her mission is to infiltrate the Communist Party and gather as much information as possible. She is considered so reliable and trustworthy, that she is offered a position of a secretary to the League Against Imperialism and the Anti-War Movement. As Minnie says excitedly, "Two Communist organizations for the price of one!"
Working inside "the Kremilin" was "a terrific mark of success for her".
But every day brings a new danger of being discovered. "It made her heart beat in panic and the palms of her hands clammy. It was fear. Fear of the enormity of the task, fear of the pressure on her that everything could go wrong".
Leading a double life is taking its toll on Minnie. And she is terrified of being found out by the Russian comrades of the British Communist Party. They are known for the cold-blooded "liquidation" of their enemies or those suspected of betrayal.
When I was reading the novel, I realised that the story was very familiar, and then remembered that I read an article about Olga Gray a few years ago, who was an inspiration for the main protagonist of A Beautiful Spy.
Being a spy/secret agent is never an ethical job. You can see what a huge strain it would be to lead a double life for a person with a moral code. Minnie finds it hard to betray people who believe her to be one of them. "She liked some of the people she met here, if not their beliefs. Part of her wished that she hadn't been planted to spy on them".
When she looks at Glading (co-founder of the British Communist Party), she ponders, "You think I'm your friend, but I'm not, I'm your betrayer... Here I am smiling at your daughter, laughing with your wife, but I'd turn you over to the authorities tomorrow if I had to".
I liked that the author didn't make her baddies one-dimensional. I would even say, that she portrayed the members of the Communist party sympathically.
The British Communists and sympathisers were complex people, with ideas and ideals of their own, who believed they were creating a better future. While some of them passed the secrets to the foreign goverments for money, some were genuinely idealistic and believed in the Communist cause because they thought the capitalist world is rotten through and through.
The world of MI5 is also portrayed as a Byzantine organization. Even Max, who at first appears the charm incarnate, is cold and ruthless. He puts so much pressure on Minnie, guilt-tripping her into continuing her spying activities, claiming it would be so damaging to the government if she chose to stop. They want the results, and don't care for the person who is working for them.
You would have thought that the British government would appreciate the source of the invaluable information, but no, MI5 is a cruel machine that doesn't care for human frailty. When stress takes a huge toll on Minnie and she has a nervous breakdown, her condition is barely acknowledged. "And what did they know or care about her? Hardly anything, she imagined, beyond sending out her pay cheque".
A Beautiful Spy is a compelling, absorbing historical fiction with an irresistible main character against the real historical background.
I found this novel outstanding. The story is fascinating and quietly powerful. It's not a type of spy novel, where the main character is a sex bomb who uncovers the secrets by sleeping around. Hore's portrayal of the enduring tension between mundane reality and close danger is vivid and believable.
Purchase Links
UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Untitled-Rachel-Hore-Pa/dp/1471187217
US - https://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Spy-Rachel-Hore-ebook/dp/B08955K1RB
Author Bio
Rachel Hore worked in London publishing for many years before moving with her family to Norwich, where she taught publishing and creative writing at the University of East Anglia until deciding to become a full-time writer. She is the Sunday Times (London) bestselling author of ten novels, including The Love Child. She is married to the writer D.J. Taylor and they have three sons.
Visit her at RachelHore.co.uk and connect with her on Twitter @RachelHore.
Many thanks to Rachel Hore, Simon & Schuster and Rachel's Random Resources for my copy of the book!
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