The Soviet Sisters: A Novel of the Cold War
If you can’t trust your sister, who can you trust? If you can’t trust your own government, your lover, your superiors, or the world in general, how can you survive? Why would you want to?
In Anika Scott’s The Soviet Sisters, set in Cold War Berlin in the aftermath of great destruction, tragedy and chaos, Vera and Marya work for Stalin in Soviet intelligence. Or do they? Vera, the elder, loves the Soviet ideal. Marya loves a British intelligence officer. Vera is married to a man destined for power in the Soviet Union. Marya has been sent to the Siberian gulag as a traitor. Why? Because her sister turned her in.
In 1956, nine years later, Vera undertakes a dangerous mission to uncover the truth behind her sister’s activities in Berlin and the reason for her detainment and banishment. Is Vera so cold and mechanical that she would sacrifice her own sister for a cause long since revealed as madness? Will Marya, who longs for freedom and idyllic love, ever reveal her own truths? Which is the stronger emotion: honor or love, loyalty or desire?
In the wake of World War II, another war is brewing. What do individuals matter in a global war of different political realities waged by men who care little for the individual? I found The Soviet Sisters to be a compelling read describing what it’s like for decent people to exist under a government based on deceit, distrust, and self-survival. The build-up may be slow, but that’s how mysteries unwrap themselves as they reveal the sinister nature of an espionage system whose members must remain vigilant, wondering and fearing what’s around the next corner. Who can be trusted? How do you survive?