In 1936 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Alexsi Ivanovich Smirnov, is an orphan in the Soviet System and a wily thief. He is creative, at 16, he is handy with a knife he always keeps on his person. It is sewn into his underwear just above his privates. He knows that is a safe place to hide it as personal searches in that location are lax. He has a gift for languages and survival. Starved at the orphanage, they were given only brown bread and water. He creates a plan. One night and he along with a young girl, Aida, go down separately in the dumbwaiter into the kitchen.

Once in the kitchen, Alexsi used the lock picks he had perfected to open the storage door where the food was kept. They feasted on white bread, jam, and canned fruit. After they ate they experimented with sex. At such a young age, Aida was very experienced and taught Alexsi everything she knew. Alexsi was eager to learn about everything and spent as much time as he could at the General Library, the largest in Azerbaijan. You were not permitted to take books out of the library but you could request books and read there. One day troops from NKVD (SECRET POLICE), arrest him, place him in the back of the infamous black Maria and take him to famous Lubyanka prison in Moscow.

After being questioned, he is given a choice: Be trained to be a spy to be sent to Nazi Germany, or be shot. His decision was simple. He began to train with Yakushev, a gifted spymaster. He trained non-stop and when he was given an assignment he completed it favorably, fast and efficiently. After seven years, Yakushev sends him to Munich to pretend to be a nephew of a high ranking Nazi official, Hans Shultz. Shultz watches out for Alexsi and gets him posted to Berlin to the Third Infantry Division where he serves with honor and receives a campaign medal. He continues to be a spy, traveling and carrying out spy missions successfully.

William Christie writes an intricate, fast moving, action filled spy thriller set in Russia, Germany, and on to Iran. Our protagonist is a poor urchin, multilingual, lethal, fast on his feet and his survival instinct is faultless. Born to be a spy, his greatest and most complex assignment is to assassinate Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt at their upcoming conference at Tehran. It will have you glued to your seats, turning the pages faster and faster until the climax. Christie is an author to be reckoned with and I look forward to his next book, hopefully continuing the saga of Alexsi. I highly recommend A SINGLE SPY. It's a superb and chilling spy novel that is 5 star+.