Why read The Spy Who Was Left Out In The Cold?

Book cover of The Spy Who Was Left Out In The Cold: The Secret History of Agent Goleniewski

Book description

Spring 1958: a mysterious individual believed to be high up in the Polish secret service began passing Soviet secrets to the West.

His name was Michal Goleniewski and he remains one of the most important, least known and most misunderstood spies of the Cold War. Even his death is shrouded…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Spy Who Was Left Out In The Cold as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Deborah Lawrenson

Author

I have become a bit obsessed with Cold War history and fiction, but had never heard much about Michal Goleniewski. Though some say he was one of the best spies the West ever had, he remains one of the least known figures of this fascinating era, largely written out of the history books. Tim Tate does a brilliant job of uncovering why that should be, drawing on previously-unpublished primary source documents. Though Goleniewski exposed hundreds of KGB agents operating undercover in the West, including George Blake and the 'Portland Spy Ring', the problem was, he was a deeply flawed man…

From Deborah's 3 favorite reads in 2024.