A Very Expensive Poison: The Definitive Story of the Murder of Litvinenko and Russia's War with the West - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1783350938 ISBN 13: 9781783350933

Publisher: Guardian Faber Publishing

Synopsis

1 November 2006. Alexander Litvinenko is brazenly poisoned in central London. Twenty two days later he dies, killed from the inside. The poison? Polonium; a rare, lethal and highly radioactive substance. His crime? He had made some powerful enemies in Russia. Based on the best part of a decade's reporting, as well as extensive interviews with those closest to the events (including the murder suspects), and access to trial evidence, Luke Harding's A Very Expensive Poison is the definitive inside story of the life and death of Alexander Litvinenko. Harding traces the journey of the nuclear poison across London, from hotel room to nightclub, assassin to victim; it is a deadly trail that seemingly leads back to the Russian state itself. Harding argues that Litvinenko's assassination marked the beginning of the deterioration of Moscow's relations with the west and a decade of geo-political disruptions - from the war in Ukraine, a civilian plane shot down, at least 7,000 dead, two million people displaced and a Russian president's defiant rejection of a law-based international order. With Russia's covert war in Ukraine and annexation of the Crimea, Europe and the US face a new Cold War, but with fewer certainties. This is a shocking real-life revenge tragedy with corruption and subterfuge at every turn, and walk-on parts from Russian mafia, the KGB, MI6 agents, dedicated British coppers, Russian dissidents. At the heart of this all is an individual and his family torn apart by a ruthless crime.

About this title

About the Author

Luke Harding is an award-winning foreign correspondent with the Guardian. Between 2007 and 2011 he was the Guardian's Moscow bureau chief; the Kremlin expelled him from the country in the first case of its kind since the cold war. He is the author of Mafia State and co-author of WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy, The Liar: The Fall of Jonathan Aitken (nominated for the Orwell Prize) and The Snowden Files. Two of Harding's books have been made into films; The Fifth Estate and Snowden.

Review

"Extraordinarily pacy...one of the best political thrillers I have come across in years." - The Evening Standard"Harding...tells this ghastly tale with real authority, wit, and panache." - The Times "Impassioned...Harding paints deft portraits of the tragi-comic duo suspected of carrying out the crime." - The New Statesman "Gripping." - London Review of Books "A Very Expensive Poison reads like a John Le Carre spy novel, but shockingly it's all true. Luke Harding has followed the criminality of the Putin regime from Russia to the West and his story leaves us with terrible feeling of dread about what Putin will do next."- Bill Browder, author ofRed Notice "An expert chronicler of a sensational but opaque crime...Enthralling." - A. D. Miller, author of Snowdrops "Harding lays out every fact connecting it in thrillerish detail to the dark undercurrents of life in today's Russia." - Oliver Bullough, author of The Last Man in Russia "Horrific, instructive and, at times, hilarious. He is a masterful storyteller and an impeccable researcher." - Federico Varese, Professor of Criminology, University of Oxford"

Edition details

• Publisher: Guardian Faber Publishing
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1783350938
• ISBN 13: 9781783350933
• Binding: Paperback