A true-life spy thriller in relentlessly gruesome detail.
Stealing Soviet secrets.
Journalist Corera’s account is the kind of real-life espionage on which John le Carré based his spy novels. Set behind Soviet lines during the Cold War, the story delivers codes, secret signals, double-crossing, and moles. We also have a problematic hero, Vasili Mitrokhin, once bound for the glamorous life of a spy in the West, but demoted to running an archive in the bowels of Moscow’s notorious Lubyanka prison—turned KGB headquarters. Disillusioned by Stalin and the collapse of the Soviet Union and influenced by fellow dissident Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Mitrokhin takes the opposite path to Vladimir Putin—himself a security official in Dresden—and begins to regard his country as a gulag, particularly after the 1956 invasion of Hungary and the crushed hopes following the Prague Spring. The bones of the story are straightforward: Top secret files, archived at Lubyanka, are to be rehoused in a new KGB complex outside Moscow. One man is responsible for summarizing the files, which name both former and active spies and the names of operatives embedded in U.S., British, and French intelligence. The man responsible takes secret notes over a period of years, then visits embassies in Vilnius as a “walk-in,” offering the notes first to the Americans—who refuse him—and then the British, who facilitate his defection. That man is Mitrokhin. What Corera makes clear is how unglamorous espionage can be, and how unwelcome its findings. Since Mitrokhin copied rather than stole the files, the Russians had to assume everything was compromised. Similarly, Western intelligence agencies discovered moles themselves and purged not only the agents, but those failing to detect them. It is to Corera’s credit that he brings a journalist’s detailed narrative to historical events. Yet the lives of all concerned are so bleak—and the unrewarding, labyrinthine lives so grimly dull—that by book’s end we not only understand their world, but gladly flee it.
A true-life spy thriller in relentlessly gruesome detail.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9798897100262
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist (1900–45) collected his work from WWII in two bestselling volumes, this second published in 1944, a year before Pyle was killed by a sniper’s bullet on Okinawa. In his fine introduction to this new edition, G. Kurt Piehler (History/Univ. of Tennessee at Knoxville) celebrates Pyle’s “dense, descriptive style” and his unusual feel for the quotidian GI experience—a personal and human side to war left out of reporting on generals and their strategies. Though Piehler’s reminder about wartime censorship seems beside the point, his biographical context—Pyle was escaping a troubled marriage—is valuable. Kirkus, at the time, noted the hoopla over Pyle (Pulitzer, hugely popular syndicated column, BOMC hype) and decided it was all worth it: “the book doesn’t let the reader down.” Pyle, of course, captures “the human qualities” of men in combat, but he also provides “an extraordinary sense of the scope of the European war fronts, the variety of services involved, the men and their officers.” Despite Piehler’s current argument that Pyle ignored much of the war (particularly the seamier stuff), Kirkus in 1944 marveled at how much he was able to cover. Back then, we thought, “here’s a book that needs no selling.” Nowadays, a firm push might be needed to renew interest in this classic of modern journalism.
Pub Date: April 26, 2001
ISBN: 0-8032-8768-2
Page Count: 513
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
A lucid, astute text that unpacks the myths of Russian history to help explain present-day motivations and actions.
An expert on Russia delivers a crucially relevant study of a country that has been continuously “subjected to the vicissitudes of ruling ideologies.”
Wolfson History Prize winner Figes, one of the world’s leading authorities on Russian history and culture, shows how, over centuries, Russian autocrats have manipulated intertwined layers of mythology and history to suit their political and imperial purposes. Regarding current affairs, the author argues convincingly that to understand Putin’s aggressive behavior toward Ukraine and other neighboring nations, it is essential to grasp how Russia has come to see itself within the global order, especially in Asia and Europe. Figes emphasizes the intensive push and pull between concepts of East and West since the dubious founding of Kievan Rus, “the first Russian state,” circa 980. Russia’s geography meant it had few natural boundaries and was vulnerable to invasion—e.g., by the Mongols—and its mere size often required strong, central military control. It was in Moscow’s interests to increase its territorial boundaries and keep its neighbors weak, a strategy still seen today. Figes explores the growth of the “patrimonial autocracy” and examines how much of the mechanics of the country’s autocracy, bureaucracy, military structure, oligarchy, and corruption were inherited from three centuries of Mongol rule. From Peter the Great to Catherine the Great to Alexander II (the reformer who freed the serfs) and through the Bolsheviks to Stalin: In most cases, everything belonged to the state, and there were few societal institutions to check that power. “This imbalance—between a dominating state and a weak society—has shaped the course of Russian history,” writes the author in a meaningful, definitive statement. Today, Putin repudiates any hint of Westernizing influences (Peter the Great) while elevating the Eastern (Kievan Rus, the Orthodox Church). In that, he is reminiscent of Stalin, who recognized the need for patriotic fervor and national myths and symbols to unite and ensure the oppression of the masses.
A lucid, astute text that unpacks the myths of Russian history to help explain present-day motivations and actions.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-79689-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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