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I remember learning about the Cold War in school; but I’ve never read it from the perspective of a CIA operating during that time. During quarantine, I recently binged the FX show The Americans. It’s about two KGB agents who were sent to the United States during the 1980s. After finishing the show, I hopped on YouTube and started watching a couple of interviews of the lead actors. On a panel with them, there were a couple of former CIA agents. Martha Peterson was one of them. She was asked about her time operating in Moscow and she explained a story where she was captured by the KGB after a mission was compromised. After hearing that story, I was intrigued and immediately got her book.

The Widow Spy is an enlightening and intriguing read. It was hard to put the book down. As the story progresses so do readers' heartbeats because it’s clear where this is going. With Martha being arrested. Martha goes from being a young woman, who just lost her husband in a tragic accident, to an important asset to the CIA in Moscow.

I do wish that the author included much more of an epilogue. The book begins with her revealing to her teenage children that she had been a spy and had been married before. I wish that it circled back to that. And as intriguing as this book was, I also wanted to know more about her time as a CIA agent throughout her long career.

Final Thoughts

The Widow Spy is an interesting story of how someone joined the CIA and became a part of history.