Inspired by the true story of Melita Norwood, unmasked in 1999 (at 87) as the KGB’s longest-serving British spy, this briskly paced and well-researched historical novel centers on the life of Joan Stanley, a young physicist at Cambridge during the early years of World War II. An impressionable girl from a small village, Joan quickly befriends the enigmatic Sonya and her charismatic cousin Leo, both of whom are known communist sympathizers with ties to Russia and Germany.

As nations around the world falter before the rising tide of fascism, Joan’s colleagues in Cambridge race to perfect the one weapon guaranteed to end the war: the atomic bomb. As an attractive young woman in a male-dominated field, Joan occupies a unique position: she is knowledgeable enough to pass valuable information to the Soviets and innocuous enough to get away with it. Spurred by her love for Leo and her desire to see such dangerous knowledge dispersed to the many rather than hoarded by the few – especially after the atomic bomb is deployed under horrifying circumstances – Joan finds herself compromising her career, her conscience, and her only chance at a normal life.

Deftly moving between flashbacks to pre-war Cambridge and present-day interrogations by MI5 agents, Rooney weaves a compelling novel that provides no easy answers. Against a harrowing backdrop of wartime paranoia, Joan must grapple with conflicting choices, questionable motives, shifting loyalties, and the slow erosion of a way of life she has long taken for granted.

Jennie Rooney
Jennie Rooney was born in Liverpool in 1980. She studied history at the University of Cambridge and taught English in France before moving to London to work as an attorney. Her first novel, Inside the Whale, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award.

• Oct 9 2014
  Boston Bibliophile: "A tense and absorbing tale about love and what it means to be loyal."
  
• Aug 1 2014
  Barnes & Noble Review: "Rooney wonderfully evokes not only the political consciousness of the time but also the exhilaration."
  
• Jul 23 2014
  Mary Whipple Reviews: "A thoughtful and provocative novel."
  
• Jul 13 2014
  The Seattle Times: "An absorbing, intelligent tale."
  
• Jul 2 2014
  New York Journal of Books: "For some readers the science of Red Joan will resonate; for others, the politics will hold their interest; others still will find both story lines equally thrilling."
  
• Jun 19 2014
  Kirkus: "Rooney has created a wonderful narrative structure."