There’s been a trend these last few years of taking popular female historical characters and putting them in espionage situations. Queen Elizabeth. Jackie O. I’ve never read any of these books but I suppose there’s something to be mined from the genre.
There’s really no interesting way to do the same with Melania Trump, given her complicity in her husband’s regime. So Anna Pitoniak decides to tweak just a few things (very few things) and write a story that covers both ends of the Cold War, past and present.
In lesser hands, this would either be a novel that takes itself too seriously or not seriously enough. But Pitoniak, for the most part, strikes the right balance.
Because while there are scenes and themes set in the present day of a barely fictionalized Trump administration, the bulk of the book is recounted in flashbacks of the daughter of as Soviet embassy attache (re: KGB agent) living her life in Paris and the good/bad/ugly that comes with it.
To that end, Pitoniak crafts an interesting family drama that slowly morphs into a spy thriller about a young woman who gets pulled deeper and deeper into the perilous pissing contest between the Soviets and the US, often with disastrous consequences to her family. As she intentionally starts her Melania stand in as a blank slate, she’s patient at pulling back the curtain to reveal this person as a fully formed human being who was faced with impossible choices and did the best she could.
So if you’re looking for “What if Melania was a spy?”, I think this one will disappoint. But if you’re looking for an interesting historical fiction take on the Cold War featuring some contemporary characters, you may appreciate this.