A: Absolutely the most challenging section of the book was Iris’s story. Whenever I take direct inspiration from some historical figure, I find it difficult to separate the actual history from the story I want to tell—the facts tend to block my imagination. It takes some time and iteration to develop my characters as people in their own right, instead of some flat derivative of the historical figure who first inspired me. Iris and Sasha met in several different scenarios before I finally started fresh in Rome, and everything fell into place. By that time, I already had Ruth’s narrative sketched out in my head, so that came more easily despite all the intense, intricate plotting that goes along with an espionage storyline. Somewhat alarmingly, though, the voice that came most naturally was that of my fictional KGB officer, Lyudmila Ivanova! About halfway through the novel, I realized I needed the perspective of the cat as well as the mice, to bring all my ideas together. Having done a fair amount of research on the Soviet intelligence services at that point, I instinctively grasped the mentality of someone who had survived and thrived in the brutal, traumatic environment of Stalinist Russia—the Soviet citizen in its most distilled form—and Lyudmila rose right from the page, her character and her moral arc perfectly clear to me from the first word.

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