BILLION DOLLAR SPY: A True Story of Cold War Espionage

An unforgettable journey into Cold War espionage, this is a breakthrough book in intelligence writing, drawing on CIA operational cables. Hoffman reveals CIA tradecraft tricks and chilling insight into the Cold War spy game between Washington and Moscow that has erupted anew under Vladimir Putin. The story pulses with a dramatic tension of running an agent in Soviet-era Moscow where the KGB is ubiquitous and CIA officers and Russian assets are prey. January 1977. While the Chief of the CIA's Moscow station fills his petrol tank, a stranger drops a note into the car. In the years that follow, that stranger, Adolf Tolkachev, becomes one of the West's most valuable spies. At enormous risk he and his handlers conduct clandestine meetings across Moscow using spy cameras, disguises and secret codes to elude the KGB in its own backyard, until a shocking betrayal puts them all at risk. 391pp, paperback, 16 pages of archive photos.