Kessler has a talent for finding singularly larger-than-life women to write about. She previously told the life story of fast-living lady stunt-pilot Pancho Barnes in the memorably titled Happy Bottom Riding Club. Clever Girl has an equally juicy story behind it: the tale of Elizabeth Bentley, a seemingly straitlaced Vassar grad who wound up converting to communism and became the KGB’s most important spy in America during World War II, running rings of agents that infiltrated dozens of agencies in Washington. When her lover and KGB contact died, the spy whom the Russians code-named “Clever Girl” came in from the cold and found herself under some very hot public scrutiny. What she knew, or claimed to know under oath, was political dynamite; she was instrumental in the infamous Rosenberg trial, and lived for a time as the darling of the anticommunist right wing. Kessler makes the most of her fascinating subject, though her efforts are weakened by a lack of solid evidence to draw on. Speculation and conjecture are unfortunate but necessary given Bentley’s shadowy early career and her later isolation, dying practically alone and friendless.
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