A Woman of Intelligence: a 1950s spy story

A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe is a spy novel set in the early 1950s as the Red Scare takes hold of the nation. Katharina “Rina” Edgeworth is a born and bred New Yorker. She has married the ideal husband, the talented pediatric surgeon, two sons, a Fifth Avenue address, high society parties. To the outside world, she has the perfect life. But appearances can be deceiving. As the daughter of immigrants, Ivy-League educated and speaking four languages, as a single girl in 1940s Manhattan, she was recruited as a translator at the newly formed United Nations. She devotes her days to the promise of world peace and her nights to the promise of a good time. But life as a wife and mother, Rina feels trapped in a gilded cage and she is desperate to escape. One fateful day, she is approached by the FBI to be an informant. A man from her past has become a high-level Soviet spy and the FBI has tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate his inner circle. Enter Rina, the perfect woman for the job. Can she navigate the demands of the FBI, secrets and keep her everyday life safe and secret? 

A Woman of Intelligence is described with the “fast-paced twists of a classic spy thriller, and the nuanced depiction of female experience” and “shimmers with intrigue and desire.” I can say it failed to live up to this description. Maybe I’m not familiar enough with spy thrillers, not my usual genre, but the story was anything but fast-paced. The references to the Cold War events as they happened was interesting as the McCarthy hearings were headline news at the time. Rina was a very hard woman to care for. She whined and complained more than anything else. There were too many comments about the socialites and the fashion of the day, then the spy intrigue. The author tries to show how underappreciated the stay at home moms were, and often still are today, however, it did not improve my opinion of Rina. I can appreciate that the author wanted to show a woman who is more than just a wife and mother. Overall, I enjoyed A Woman of Intelligence, it just was not as exciting as I expected. If you are a fan of Karin Tanabe, you may enjoy A Woman of Intelligence. 

A Woman of Intelligence is available in hardcover, eBook and audiobook.