A Very Dangerous Woman: The Lives, Loves, and Lies of Russia’s Most Seductive Spy

Maria Ignatievna Zakrevskaya, called Moura by friends and family, led a life as turbulent as the Russian revolution she cunningly managed to survive. Biographer McDonald (Clara Collet 1860–1948) and novelist Dronfield (The Locust Farm) explore that life in a fast-paced story of European intrigue, featuring an enigmatic, strong-willed woman who married twice and whose lovers included Alexander Kerensky, Maxim Gorky, and H.G. Wells. Moura was raised in a wealthy Ukrainian family with connections to the Russian czar, and her first husband, Djon Alexandrovich von Benckendorff, was from an equally upper-class Estonian family. The outbreak of the Great War in 1914 disrupted this life of privilege; von Benckendorff resigned his diplomatic post in Berlin and joined the Russian army. Once the revolution started, Moura didn’t hesitate to cultivate sexual connections as a means of protecting herself. In 1918, she met Robert Lockhart, head of the British diplomatic mission in Petrograd, and they embarked on an affair that got her embroiled in a plot to overthrow the Bolsheviks, turned her into a spy for the Soviet secret police, and eventually drove her into exile in England. Moura’s survival story is fascinating on its own; unfortunately, the authors overcommit to the unnecessary love story angle. Illus. [em](June) [/em]