Red Joan

Written by Jennie Rooney

Narrated by Juliet Stevenson

Joan's voice is almost a whisper. 'Nobody talked about what they did during the war. We all knew we weren't allowed to.'

Joan Stanley has a secret.

She is a loving mother, a doting grandmother, and leads a quiet, unremarkable life in the suburbs. Then one morning there is a knock on the door, and suddenly the past she has been so keen to hide for the last fifty years threatens to overturn her comfortable world.

Cambridge University in 1937 is awash with ideas and idealists, yet unworldly Joan feels better suited to a science lecture and a cup of cocoa. But a chance meeting with the glamorous Russian-born Sonya and her charismatic cousin Leo blurs the edges of the things Joan thought she knew about the world, and about herself.

In the post-War world of smoke and mirrors, allegiance is a slippery thing. Working in a government ministry with access to top-secret information, Joan is suddenly faced with the most difficult question of all: what price would you pay to remain true to what you believe? Would you betray your country, your family, even the man you love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House UK Audio
• Release date: Mar 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781448178841

Reviews for Red Joan

[pgchuis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The story of Joan, who goes to Cambridge University in 1937, where she meets Russians Sonya and Leo. Once the war starts, Joan is posted to a secret research department working to develop the atomic bomb. The story is told in two alternating threads; Joan's life as a young woman and the "present" day (Joan is now in her 80s), when MI5 comes to arrest her for having been a Soviet spy. The novel is inspired by the real life case of Melita Norwood, although a Note at the end makes the many differences between Joan and Melita clear.I found this novel compelling, although I didn't exactly enjoy it. Joan was quite hard to root for, not so much (as I had anticipated) because I couldn't relate to why she did what she did, SPOILERSbut more because she didn't seem particularly clear herself what her motives had been. Was it shock over Hiroshima? Did she fear the Americans? Was it because Churchill didn't keep his word? Was it out of hero worship for Leo? She didn't seem to have any strong attachment to Russia as a country - she had never even been... I related strongly to the passage where her son Nick accuses her of arrogance in thinking it was down to her to try to right such "wrongs".Joan was extremely naive in her dealings with Leo and Sonya (the latter was so obviously not to be trusted that it was hard to reconcile Joan's stupidity with her scientific expertise). Then suddenly, she sees the potential of the photo of Rupert and William and uses it deviously to gain her own ends. The moment when Joan realizes her responsibility for what happened to Leo was extremely well done - worth a star on its own. Max was very lovely, although I had a bit of a shock when he forgave her so instantly for betraying him, his work, her department, her country and allowing him to be arrested and was willing to run off with her - he was definitely a keeper. Thought provoking, but perhaps not entirely credible.

[bostonbibliophile · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really loved this one. It starts off slow but builds and by the end I was breathless. It's a spy story of sorts, or maybe a crime story, or maybe both. Joan is an elderly lady who is being interrogated about her role in the passing of sensitive nuclear information to the Soviets just after WW2. The narrative goes back and forth between the present tense of her interrogation and the past, and the real question throughout is why she did what she did. Was she a Communist true believer? Was she enamored of one and manipulated? What about her friend Sonya? What role did she play? And others? It's a tangled web for sure and Jennie Rooney spins out her secrets one by one. It's intense character-driven suspense. If you like Ben Macintyre's real-life spy stories read this, and read it anyway because it's a great novel.

[seven.stories.press · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm not usually one for historical fiction, but this book captured my full attention from Page One. The weaving together of past and present, new and old revelations, and WWII and the Cold War is quite masterful. (Without giving away too much of the plot: this is the story of a woman whose past as a Russian spy is discovered when she is in her 80s and has thought she'd gotten away with it.) There are a few twists and turns in the plot that are anticipated but others that are complete surprises. I'll definitely be seeking out the author's prior novels.

[schatje_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In 2005, Joan Stanley, an 85-year-old widow and grandmother, is accused of passing atomic secrets to Stalin’s Russia during the Cold War. In five days of interrogation by MI5, Joan relives her days at Cambridge (where she became friends with two cousins and communist sympathizers, Leo and Sonya Galich), and her work as a secretary in a lab researching the components of nuclear technology. During her questioning, she is joined by her son Nick, a barrister who is totally unaware of his mother’s wartime activities.Although the book deals with espionage, it is not an action-packed spy thriller. It is more of a psychological study which examines how a person could come to betray one’s country by revealing state secrets to a foreign power. The author indicates that her book was inspired by the true story of Melita Norwood, an 87-year-old Brit who, in 1999, was revealed to have served as a spy for the KGB.Joan is a very naïve girl when she arrives at university. For example, she falls in love with Leo and the two have a sexual relationship, but he never tells her he loves her. Years later, she still “wants him to run after her, catching her in his arms and kissing her in a blaze of sunlight like a princess in a fairy tale, and declare that he loves her.” Her sheltered life until she leaves for Cambridge may account for this youthful naivety, but it is incredible that as an octogenarian she believes she can hide the truth from her son and MI5. She is also not very astute when it comes to judging people. Sonya, for instance, behaves strangely several times and even tells Joan, “’I’m a chameleon. Surely you know that by now.’” Nevertheless, in all their years of friendship, Joan never guesses the truth about this woman who convinces her to aid her cause; in fact, her typical response is to feel “guilt for having worried, even momentarily, that Sonya was not to be trusted.” These traits are not what one would expect in a spy and so are somewhat problematic in the novel.The reader does come to see Joan as a good person who is torn between loyalty to her country and a need to do what she believes is right: “she recognizes for the first time that she is in a unique position to make things fair. To make the world a safer place. To do her duty, as her father once told her she must.” The justifications she uses for her actions are revealing: “[S]he tells herself that what she is doing is not really that significant. It is how she justifies what she is doing, being careful always to make sure that none of the intelligence she passes on is information that she actually seeks out. It is information that is given to her, one way or another; it passes into her knowledge, and then it drops out again. She shares it rather than steals it . . . ” Despite her faulty rationalization, Joan can be admired for her qualities as a mother: she loves her son a great deal, feels guilt at disrupting his life, and has a strong desire to protect him. There are some weaknesses in this book. A message is waiting for Joan at her mother’s home even though Joan never told anyone she was going there. Later, a second message from another person reaches her there. Joan’s job at the lab presents issues. Would the recommendation of a British internee in an internment camp in Canada be sufficient to get her the job? Would she have been so easily given security clearance since her attendance at communist rallies was known? Is it logical that a secretary rather than another scientist would go on a trans-Atlantic trip with the director of the research facility at which she works?The book is not flawless, but it gives one pause to think: Is it possible “to be certain of the things you would do and the things you would not do”? “Where does responsibility begin, and where does it end?” Note: I received an advance reading copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.