The Diamond Eye

by Kate Quinn

that tall bony bitch Eleanor Roosevelt.

Barely fifteen years old. A mother nine months later.

So no more mistakes, that flinty internal voice said. And I promised myself: Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

When you’re young and you’ve known nothing but peace, you assume there will always be time for everything.

When you planned to assassinate a president, you timed it when a Russian sniper was in town to take the fall for you.

THE FIRST FACE I saw when I woke up was Alexei Pavlichenko’s, and I recoiled so hard he nearly had to peel me off the ceiling.

“Look at you, managing that silverware like a pro!” Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s voice grew edged. “Thank you,” she said brightly. “We just received silverware in the Soviet Union last week.

My memoir, the official version: Being a woman in the army has its difficulties. In male company one must be strict: no flirting, no teasing, no games, not ever. My memoir, the unofficial version: Well. About that . . .

men are worse gossips than old women,

The First Lady rocketed her little two-seat convertible down the broad Washington avenues like she was piloting a tornado. We’d left the embassy Cadillac and both the Soviet and American security patrols behind at the first stoplight; it was all I could do to hang on and try to follow her English. Were presidents’ wives allowed to do this? I tried to imagine Comrade Stalin’s wife (should he have one) zooming around Moscow like an unescorted missile, and my imagination failed utterly.

That booby of a Russian doctor

“I reminded myself that you must do the thing you think you cannot do,” she said simply. “Always. And generally you find out you can do it, after all.”

One of the men in the front row stood jingling his hands in his pockets, watching me with a cold gaze;

Sus 👀

I didn’t feel alone in a sniper’s nest at midnight, but I frequently felt alone in crowds—which

no one should waste time if there’s a chance to be happy.”