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The Terminal Spy

A True Story of Espionage, Betrayal and Murder

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1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
“A story that is at once a real-life thriller and an immensely sinister cautionary tale about the new Russia.”—Star Tribune
 
In this breathtaking true crime narrative, an award-winning journalist exposes the troubling truth behind the world’s first act of nuclear terrorism.

On November 1, 2006, Alexander Litvinenko sipped tea in London’s Millennium Hotel. Hours later, the Russian émigré and former intelligence officer, who was sharply critical of Russian president Vladimir Putin, fell ill and within days was rushed to the hospital. Fatally poisoned by a rare radioactive isotope slipped into his drink, Litvinenko issued a dramatic deathbed statement accusing Putin himself of engineering his murder.
 
Who was Alexander Litvinenko? What had happened in Russia since the end of the Cold War to make his life there untenable? And how did he really die?
 
The life of Alexander Litvinenko culminated in an event that rang alarm bells among Western governments at the ease with which radioactive materials were deployed in a major Western capital to commit a unique crime. It also evoked a wide range of other issues: Russia’s lurch to authoritarianism, the return of the KGB to the Kremlin, the perils of a new Cold War driven by the oil riches of Russia and Vladimir Putin’s thirst for power.
 
Alan S. Cowell, former London Bureau Chief of the New York Times, has written the definitive story of this assassination and the profound international implications of this first act of nuclear terrorism. A masterful work of investigative reporting, The Terminal Spy offers unprecedented insight into one of the most chilling true stories of our time.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 2, 2008
      The 2006 poisoning of the former KGB agent turned dissident Alexander Litvinenko by radioactive polonium captured the world’s imagination. In this less than crystalline account, New York Times
      London bureau chief Cowell plays up the spy-thriller intrigue. Building Litvinenko almost into a miniseries protagonist—he was “usband, father, traitor, whistleblower, son, spy, lover, fugitive”—Cowell recaps his career as a KGB functionary and then critic of Russia’s postcommunist kleptocracy; his relationship with tycoon Boris Berezovsky; his exile in London’s murky Russian expat community and outspoken attacks on Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he denounced, from his deathbed, as his killer. Cowell’s analysis of the crime and the investigation, especially his retracing of the tell-tale trail of polonium, is repetitive and often confusing. He characterizes the murder sometimes as a brazen act of “nuclear terrorism” intended to restart the Cold War, sometimes as a careful, surreptitious hit. The question of whodunit—Putin? Berezovsky? vengeful KGB veterans? Russian businessmen exposed by Litvinenko’s private sleuthing? to protect the Italian prime minister, Romano Prodi, of all people?—flounders inconclusively among competing conspiracy theories. Cowell relishes the mystery of the case, but doesn’t dispel it.

    • Booklist

      July 1, 2008
      Written by aNew York Times foreign correspondent, this work investigates the November 2006 murder of Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko. Briefly an international incident because of the murder weaponpolonium 210the case opened a window onto the dark side of postSoviet Russian politics, through which Cowell enterprisingly casts his gaze as far as evidence and reasonable inference permit. From interviews with Litvinenkos circle and with the Russians in Britain, where the crime occurred, officially charged with killing him, Cowell smokes out possible machinations behind the murder. Suggesting that Russias power alignment led by President Vladimir Putin held grudges against Litvinenko, Cowell delves both into Litvinenkos career in the KGB and its domestic successor, the FSB, and into his associations with Putin enemy Boris Berezovsky.Cowell thendiscusses the forensics of Litvinenkos fatal final meeting with fellow graduates of the Russian secret service, detailing the discovery of widespread radioactive contamination that matched up with the movements of the victim and the suspects.A comprehensive inquiry.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

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