I have been lucky enough to read some great thrillers lately. One of them is The Secretary by Deborah Lawrenson.

Revolving around Lois Vale ( MI6 ) and her work as a ‘secretary’ at the British Embassy in Moscow where she was given unenviable tasks/mysteries to solve and report back via diplomatic bags to her ‘handlers’

I cant emphasis enough how much work has gone into this book,the history and facts and descriptions of Russian and Embassy life for foreign diplomatic workers is probably the detail richest I have read,fascinating does not cover it and everything from the climate,to food and shops,Embassy rituals and protocols,housing and local culture is nothing short of fascinatingly explained, I drank in every sentence and far from being overpowering in content I could not get enough of what I was reading

The story itself is thrilling and character laden with Lois ‘colleauge’ Sonia being more than worthy of an Oscar,she was portrayed scarily brilliantly

Even more astounding to me was the authors notes that told me the book was actually based on diary’s from her Mother

This book is special,it’s more than a ‘great read’ and deserves much recognition

Readers more savvy about spy novels than I will no doubt be more fully appreciative of Deborah Lawrenson’s “The Secretary,” which, for all that it had me pretty well befuddled by novel's end, nevertheless is crackerjack espionage fiction, particularly situated as it is in the heyday of spy activity – the time of the Cambridge Five, the time of Khrushchev reportedly pounding his shoe on the U.N. desk and declaring “we will bury you” and the time of books such as Nevil Shute’s “On The Beach” scaring the pants off all of us with their depiction of the aftermath of nuclear war.
All of which are at least in the background in Lawrenson’s novel and struck particular chords for me with how they were mainstays of my Cold War childhood.
Hence my particular interest in Lawrenson’s novel, with its story of a young Englishwoman, Lois Vale (a takeoff of “veil,” I deduced) enlisted in an effort to flush out a mole in the British Embassy in Moscow. Or such is her understanding of her mission to begin with, anyway, though as the novel progresses, first confronting her with a strange Russian on the train carrying her to her new post, then confronting her with more strange doings and characters once she’s actually on site, it becomes increasingly obvious that there’s much more going on than initially met her eye, so much so that, as I say, by novel’s end I had pretty well been left in the dust.
Still, Lawrenson’s novel, for all that it taxed me, is especially well-written and had its entertaining moments for me, such as when Lois’ flatmate in Moscow, who has come to dislike her, literally lets loose an arrow at her, prompting a colleague to remark that it was a good thing she was no Robin Hood. And there was a certain satisfaction for me in being old enough to pick up on a fleeting reference to a beach scene from the movie “From Here to Eternity” that will no doubt have younger readers clueless.

This was such an interesting read. The amount of people that were spies and all the work that they did is amazing to read about. I don't think I could have done it if I were in their shoes. The amount of close calls would have been so terrible to deal with. Overall kept my attention and on pins and needles in several spots. Great story.