In 1936 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Alexsi Ivanovich Smirnov, is an orphan in the Soviet System and a wily thief. He is creative, at 16, he is handy with a knife he always keeps on his person. It is sewn into his underwear just above his privates. He knows that is a safe place to hide it as personal searches in that location are lax. He has a gift for languages and survival. Starved at the orphanage, they were given only brown bread and water. He creates a plan. One night and he along with a young girl, Aida, go down separately in the dumbwaiter into the kitchen.

Once in the kitchen, Alexsi used the lock picks he had perfected to open the storage door where the food was kept. They feasted on white bread, jam, and canned fruit. After they ate they experimented with sex. At such a young age, Aida was very experienced and taught Alexsi everything she knew. Alexsi was eager to learn about everything and spent as much time as he could at the General Library, the largest in Azerbaijan. You were not permitted to take books out of the library but you could request books and read there. One day troops from NKVD (SECRET POLICE), arrest him, place him in the back of the infamous black Maria and take him to famous Lubyanka prison in Moscow.

After being questioned, he is given a choice: Be trained to be a spy to be sent to Nazi Germany, or be shot. His decision was simple. He began to train with Yakushev, a gifted spymaster. He trained non-stop and when he was given an assignment he completed it favorably, fast and efficiently. After seven years, Yakushev sends him to Munich to pretend to be a nephew of a high ranking Nazi official, Hans Shultz. Shultz watches out for Alexsi and gets him posted to Berlin to the Third Infantry Division where he serves with honor and receives a campaign medal. He continues to be a spy, traveling and carrying out spy missions successfully.

William Christie writes an intricate, fast moving, action filled spy thriller set in Russia, Germany, and on to Iran. Our protagonist is a poor urchin, multilingual, lethal, fast on his feet and his survival instinct is faultless. Born to be a spy, his greatest and most complex assignment is to assassinate Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt at their upcoming conference at Tehran. It will have you glued to your seats, turning the pages faster and faster until the climax. Christie is an author to be reckoned with and I look forward to his next book, hopefully continuing the saga of Alexsi. I highly recommend A SINGLE SPY. It's a superb and chilling spy novel that is 5 star+.

Book Summary

“A single spy—in the right place and at the right moment—may change the course of history.”

Alexsi Ivanovich Smirnov, an orphan and a thief, has been living by his wits and surviving below the ever-watchful eye of the Soviet system until his luck finally runs out. In 1936, at the age of 16, Alexsi is caught by the NKVD and transported to Moscow. There, in the notorious headquarters of the secret police, he is given a choice: be trained and inserted as a spy into Nazi Germany under the identity of his best friend, the long lost nephew of a high ranking Nazi official, or disappear forever in the basement of the Lubyanka. For Alexsi, it’s no choice at all.

Over the course of the next seven years, Alexsi has to live his role, that of the devoted nephew of a high Nazi official, and ultimately works for the legendary German spymaster Wilhelm Canaris as an intelligence agent in the Abwehr. All the while, acting as a double agent—reporting back to the NKVD and avoiding detection by the Gestapo. Trapped between the implacable forces of two of the most notorious dictatorships in history, and truly loyal to no one but himself, Alexsi’s goal remains the same—survival.

In 1943, Alexsi is chosen by the Gestapo to spearhead one of the most desperate operations of the war—to infiltrate the site of the upcoming Tehran conference between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, and set them up to be assassinated. For Alexsi, it’s the moment of truth; for the rest of the world, the future is at stake.