Shirley Fitzgerald is a teacher.
She is not a spy, at least I do not think she is. From the little that I have read so far, I am not sure what exactly Fitzgerald is but I am decidedly interested in learning more.
What I do know is that she is a pretty fascinating woman married to a man who suddenly, without warning, decides that he is going to defect from West Germany into communist East Germany and that is going to cause no end of trouble for this woman who has skills and talents and abilities beyond being a teacher.
When we first meet her, she is Shirley Manning, described as an attractive, dark haired young woman of 18 years of age, possessing "huge brown eyes, wide mouth, good bone structure". She has just obtained her PhD (pretty young for that). We are told, from the perspective of Daniel Fitzgerald, the man she will soon marry, that in addition to her sociology education, she "also composed music, was well known as a singer and had just hosted a series of shows which were soon to be televised".
Interestingly, for someone who has so much planned in her own future, she surprised even herself when, after meeting Daniel at a social gathering, she allowed herself to be swept off her feet and just a very short time after meeting, she would become a Fitzgerald and be very much in love.
It is the short courtship which will play a major role in the adventures that Shirley Fitzgerald will have because she will not have had the time to get to know the type of work that her new husband was really involved in. It might have been a good thing to know.