A Very Expensive Poison

December 1, 2016

Harding (former Moscow correspondent, The Guardian; The Snowden Files) has contributed a remarkable book to the burgeoning revelations about Russian President Vladimir Putin's violence against perceived opponents. Harding's main thrust concerns the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko in Great Britain at the hands of Russian agents, using the highly radioactive isotope polonium-210. Litvinenko was a Russian operative tracking organized crime, who received asylum in Britain. This book further examines the deaths in Britain of "oligarch" Boris Berezovsky and investor Alexander Perepilichny; in Washington, Mikhail Lesin; in Moscow, the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and opposition figure Boris Nemtsov. The poisons used in Britain and circumstances of death establish that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) acted at Putin's behest. The downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 by Russia's "mafia statelet" in Eastern Ukraine pushed the details of Litvinenko's murder into public view through an official inquiry, nearly nine years later. Harding concludes with an unveiling of the "Panama Papers," exposing Putin's ties to secret offshore wealth. VERDICT This detailed and thrilling page-turner portrays Russia's president as a "vindictive" murderer of "personal enemies." Recommended for all larger collections. [See "Editors' Fall Picks," LJ 9/1/16, p. 30.]--Zachary Irwin, Behrend Coll., Pennsylvania State Erie

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