The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

(Paperback)

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'An astonishingly detailed picture of espionage in the 1980s, written with pacey journalistic verve and an eerily contemporary feel.' Ben Macintyre, The Times

'A gripping story of courage, professionalism, and betrayal in the secret world.'Rodric Braithwaite, British Ambassador in Moscow, 1988-1992

'One of the best spy stories to come out of the Cold War and all the more riveting for being true.' Washington Post

January, 1977. While the chief of the CIA's Moscow station fills his gas tank, a stranger drops a note into the car.

In the years that followed, that stranger, Adolf Tolkachev, became one of the West's most valuable spies. At enormous risk Tolkachev and his handlers conducted clandestine meetings across Moscow, using spy cameras, props, and private codes to elude the KGB in its own backyard - until a shocking betrayal put them all at risk.

Drawing on previously classified CIA documents and interviews with first-hand participants, The Billion Dollar Spy is a brilliant feat of reporting and a riveting true story from the final years of the Cold War.

Reviews

It is the human factor that elevates The Billion Dollar Spy to a different level: non-fiction as rich and resonant as a spy novel by John Le Carr or Graham Greene. * Mail on Sunday *

The Pulitzer prizewinning American journalist David E Hoffman has had access to CIA files and the result is an astonishingly detailed picture of espionage in the 1980s, written with pacey journalistic verve and an eerily contemporary feel ... Essential reading for anyone who wants to know how the spy mind works.

-- Ben Macintyre * The Times *

A fabulous read that also provides chilling insights into the Cold War spy game between Washington and Moscow that has erupted anew under Vladimir Putin.

* Michael Dobbs, author of One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War *

A gripping story of courage, professionalism, and betrayal in the secret world.

* Rodric Braithwaite, British Ambassador in Moscow, 1988-1992 *

Author Bio

David E. Hoffman is a contributing editor at The Washington Post and a correspondent for PBS's flagship investigative series, Frontline. He is the author of The Dead Hand (Icon, 2011), about the end of the Cold War arms race, and winner of a Pulitzer Prize. He lives with his wife in Maryland.