Dear Fiona: Letters from a Suspected Soviet Spy - Tapa dura

'Wonderful, fascinating, fantastic': Aled Jones, BBC Radio 2. 'Compelling, gripping, moving, insightful': Erwin James, Guardian correspondent. 'Makes for compulsive reading': Edward Fitzgerald CBE QC. As featured in the Daily Mail.

He was a suspected cold war spy. She became the glamorous KGB double agent in a Bond movie. When a prisoner writes to a movie star, the best he can hope for is a signed photo, if that. But when Alex Alexandrowicz wrote to actress Fiona Fullerton, he didn't expect it to lead to a friendship spanning over 30 years. Serving two discretionary life sentences, Alex was a Category A prisoner in Parkhurst, protesting his innocence, when he wrote a fan letter to the actress. She replied, beguiled by his humour and tender poetry. So began an extraordinary friendship, of mutual support, trust and tenderness. They never met. "It is you alone who has given me strength while I have been in prison, the strength to restore lost and dying hope into burning resolution." In this touching memoir, Fiona Fullerton tells the story, for the first time, of her correspondence with the prisoner who was to serve 22 years for a crime he didn't commit. How he provided wise counsel on her marriage, divorce and burgeoning career. Based on their original letters, the narrative is one of startling contrast - the darkness of a man incarcerated and a woman surrounded by the brightest lights of show business." Have you ever heard of Nadejda Philaretovna von Meck? She and Tchaikovsky were corresponding for years, they never met - and yet he produced his finest work for her. My finest work shall be for you."