A Shadow in Moscow

In her nail-biting latest, Reay (The London House) toggles between the lives of mother and daughter spies. In 1944, Ingrid Bauer is living in Nazi-occupied Vienna when her parents are killed by the SS for working for the British Foreign Service. Heartbroken, Ingrid remains in Vienna and in 1954 marries a Soviet embassy worker. The two soon relocate to Moscow, where Ingrid begins to worry her husband is a KGB officer as she takes stock of his suspicious behavior many friends who are affiliated with the agency. After she becomes a mother, though, she sets out to create a freer world for her daughter and contacts her parents’ MI6 connections with an offer to spy. In 1980, Anya Kadinova is attending Georgetown University as part of the Foreign Studies Initiative. Upon returning to Moscow, she pines for her American boyfriend and, disillusioned by being surveilled by the KGB, becomes a CIA operative. After securing a job as an engineer reporting to the Soviet Minister of Defense, she funnels weapons intel to the U.S. As the two pursue their missions (Ingrid’s continues into the 1980s) they must draw on faith and bravery to evade Soviet clutches, and Anya dreams of reuniting with her love. Reay builds a immersive world behind the Iron Curtain, full of competing loyalties and a constant, chilling sense of paranoia. Readers will be enthralled. (June)