Review- From Warsaw With Love

 

Book - From Warsaw with Love

Author - John Pomfret

Out now.

Disclaimer: ARC via a Librarything Giveaway.

 

               Most people love spy stories.  Some of these people love them because of the romanticized aspect – more of a James Bond view than the Le Carre.  Pomfret’s book is a spy story, but it is also a how spying impacts international relations between countries. 

               Pomfret details the relationship between the Polish spy service, both during and after the Cold War, with America.  The first part of the book concerns the Polish service spying on American, focusing on industrial spy craft.  What is interesting about this section is the reason the Polish spy becomes a spy and the ability he has to “turn” the American source.  The second half of the book details not only tells the story of a Polish spy getting Americans got of Iraq during the invasion of Kuwait but what occurs after.

               I should note that I am usually not interested in Cold War history, but Pomfret’s writing style is so engrossing that I read over one hundred pages before I looked up.  There is something compelling about Pomfret’s style.  In part, this is because he does not editorial to a great degree, any degree really.  It is like you are reading a report of the action as it comes in.

               Pomfret’s relating of the Iraq mission is particularly good, and he uses it to highlight how relations between countries in terms of spy craft do not only shift from respected enemy to friend to friend who has been used and now has complex feelings. 

               It would be accurate to say that Pomfret is more sympathetic to Poland in the later part of the book. The focus on making a deal with a hippo that rolls over on you because it is a hippo attests to this.  But there is also a sense of that is what it is, what did you think was going to happen.  But it also raises the question of morality and responsibility as well as the cost that is not always paid by the spies themselves.

               It is interesting that some of the spies that Pomfret writes about seem to have decided to become spies because of the whole romantic  view of James Bond.  Popular, accomplished, and loved, if at least physically.  This is not true of the more professional spies whose views are a little cutthroat if realistic.

               This is an enjoyable read that  moves quickly.