Page 1 of The Undercover Bookshop

Prologue

Tuesday, 5 November 1991

London, England

We are delighted to announce that Ruth Werner’s bestselling novel Sonja’s Rapport has released an English translation under the title Sonya’s Report. Mrs. Werner will be traveling throughout November and December to promote sales and has personally requested an evening event at The Undercover Bookshop. Please reply if 4 December is available. Books and promotional materials to follow.

Ruth Werner.

I draw in a deep inhale and it catches in my throat. The world blurs at its edges on the exhale, and I drop onto the stool behind the shop’s customer service counter, laying down the letter. It shouldn’t shock me, yet it does. It’s certainly a surprise. Ruth Werner is coming to England. Ruth Werner is allowed to come to England.

After all these years . . .

Easy, Nora. Easy now.

The words come to me without prompting, as if pulled from thin air and the distant past. Just as she had so often said them all those years ago. Well, not quite as she said them. Much has changed in forty-one years. One thing in particular. Nora.

My thoughts flit from my relationship with the bestselling author to our country’s decades-old entanglement with her. Why is the government letting her in? No one outside a select few knows what she’s done since her escape in 1950. No one knows she might now be called a friend rather than one of our greatest foes. And, considering who she is, even that’s an open question.

What a powerful enemy she was. She ran the Soviet Union’s biggest ring of informants and spies, passing along top-secret economic, military, and financial data—and more. She was responsible for giving—via “handling” Klaus Fuchs—the Soviets the atomic bomb, along with advantages that put them ahead of Great Britain at nearly every step during those beginning Cold War years.

I close my eyes to consider what game is being played. Is the government trying to rehabilitate her reputation in England? Will they share what she’s done for Britain to placate her detractors? A derisive laugh escapes at the impossibility of that. Certainly the Soviets would shut down such a publicity stunt.

Granted everyone seems to believe the Soviet Union will fall soon and that it’s no longer a viable threat, but when is the KGB not a viable threat? One does not betray it and live to tell the tale. Her work—our work—will remain a secret. Probably long after we both are dead.

Nevertheless, I look around my bookstore, the second love of my life, and wonder what will become of it. And what will become of me, if there is a game playing in the geopolitical background—there are always at least a few games running—and I’m the pawn to be sacrificed.

I run my hand over the printed letter. Excitement and dread, in equal measure, war within me. She is coming to England and my bookshop will host her. This will happen. There is no escaping it. I simply pray I haven’t been duped by her, that what we’ve done over these past years has been what I think it’s been—good work—and, perhaps, she truly does mean to atone for the damage she caused.

Another deep breath and my heart calms. I haven’t been duped by her because I am not the scattered young woman—searching for home without an understanding of what it meant, distracted by life, by hope, and by dreams—she found standing outside her door that long-ago cold January morning. I grew under her tutelage, and I have carried her lessons further. My mind grew focused. My attention grew sharp. My thinking slowed until I could strategize, make connections and inferences almost as effectively as she did. I have not been her pawn. I have grown into her equal.

Yes, she taught me a great deal, but I made my own decisions, too, even back then. I did not follow her blindly. Perhaps I even taught her something. Perhaps that is why the government is letting her into England. Perhaps all is well and this is nothing more than a book tour.

Or perhaps she’s got another move up her sleeve.

After all, this isn’t simply a bestselling novelist we’re talking about. Ruth Werner is merely her pen name. This is the Soviet Union’s most famous and most celebrated spy. Ursula Kuczynski Beurton.

And with Ursula, nothing is what it seems . . .

Chapter 1

Thursday, 10 November 1949

Great Rollright, Oxfordshire, England

Despite what anyone says, rapid blinking actually does stop tears from falling. Maybe the movement distracts the brain, or maybe the blinking, like butterfly wings, dries the eyes. Either way, it works. Like it works right now.

“I’m not upset, Gemma.” Mr. Hastings reaches out. His hand stops just short of my shoulder.

The sudden movement bounces his white hair and reminds me of Albert Einstein as photographed for Life magazine a couple of years ago. He looks as fatherly and, at this moment, as stern as he waves his hand to encompass the general store in which we are standing. His general store.

“I’m simply saying that our customers have certain expectations about where to find items and how things work here.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and blink several times more. “Yes, sir. I understand. I’ll put everything back as it was. Straightaway.”

He smiles, and despite this morning’s clanger, it’s as warm and welcoming as it was when I interviewed and won the shopkeeper’s assistant job three days ago.

“Good. Good.” He nods, almost as fast as I’m blinking, and I sense he’s equally pleased our conversation is over. “I have the weekly deliveries to make. Soon you can be making those.”