"The fascinating yet heartbreakingly true story of the mother who was deceived into thinking she had found her lost son, and the spy who tricked her for over ten years. "
Oh my, it would be all too easy to believe this was fiction, it is so much more difficult to comprehend when you know it is true. Two separate stories were joined by one cruel lie when sleeper spy Václav Jelínek took on the name of a child from a Czech Orphanage. When he was contacted by the Red Cross and the woman who thought she was his mother, he had no option other than to continue the lie. In 1988 Jelínek was arrested in the UK, and his elaborately built house of cards came tumbling down. Paul Henderson and Davide Gardner are two journalists who covered the case and the mother’s story. They tell this extraordinary tale from the two different perspectives, which started during the Second World War and ended only recently. They are clear and direct, building the information in incredible layers. It is absolutely fascinating to hear about the tradecraft used by this old school spy during the Cold War, and the fact that he was ordered to seek connections to the Royal Family and British Government while in the UK. On the other side of the coin is the heartbreaking story of Johanna van Haarlem, and her desperate search for her son. Compelling and intriguing, A Spy in the Family is a story that lives by the saying that truth is stranger than fiction.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
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