Straight From Today’s Headlines

Straight From Today’s Headlines

I received a free copy of this audiobook from Audiobooks Unleashed and agreed to give an honest review in return. I loved this book. Several stories within a story very cleverly told. Espionage, work camps, the KGB, and defection, this story has it all. Natalia’s mother was ensconced in the CPSU the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and encouraged her daughter to change her identity and go ‘deep’ into the tenuous world of do what you’re told or pay the consequences.

From there her life takes many twists, and we get a glimpse of how young girls are drawn into a life of ‘service to their country’ while being at their mercy if something goes wrong. Yuri Andropov served a short tenure as leader of Russia between Brezhnev and Chernenko and thought of Natalia as his little ‘cuckoo’ a self-satisfying term of endearment.

The story is a memory told and narrated by a friend who felt the need to get the story out. The actual narration by James Hill was flawless. Not much else to say without spoiling the effect of the story which I feel is best revealed by the story itself.

I highly recommend this story.