The Billion Dollar Spy

Reviews

"In an era of suicide bombers and ISIS beheadings, the spy dramas of the Cold War can seem tame, almost polite affairs. Central Intelligence Agency officers who worked in the Soviet capital complained about operating under “Moscow rules,” meaning the relentless scrutiny of the K.G.B. And they knew that any Soviet citizen caught spying faced certain execution. Still, there were rules. Those rules may actually be a reason that David Hoffman’s The Billion Dollar Spy, about Adolf Tolkachev, a Soviet radar expert who spied for the C.I.A., is such an engrossing tale. The story played out over several years, almost entirely on the streets of Moscow, in a twilit chess game that pitted American intelligence officers against their Soviet counterparts."
—New York Times

“The Billion Dollar Spy is one of the best spy stories to come out of the Cold War and all the more riveting, and finally dismaying, for being true. It hits the sweet spot between page-turning thriller and solidly researched history (even the footnotes are informative) and then becomes something more, a shrewd character study of spies and the spies who run them, the mixed motives, the risks, the almost inevitable bad end."
—Washington Post

"[A] dramatic spy vs. spy story, complete with a trove of trade-craft tricks, is the grist for Pulitzer Prize-winning author David E. Hoffman's scrupulously reported The Billion Dollar Spy, a true-life tale so gripping at times it reads like spy fiction ... Hoffman interviewed key players and gained access to more than 900 pages of long-secret CIA files and operational cables to fill in a crucial gap in the Cold War espionage canon."
—Los Angeles Times

“[The Billion Dollar Spy] packs valuable insights into the final decade of the cloak-and-dagger rivalry between the United States and the former Soviet Union, which came undone in 1989. It is a must-read for historians and buffs of that era, as well as aficionados of espionage ... Hoffman draws on extensive declassified CIA and FBI files and myriad other sources to chronicle how the United States gained and lost one of the elite spies of the Cold War."
—Christian Science Monitor

"Gripping and nerve-wracking ... Human tension hangs over every page of The Billion Dollar Spy like the smell of leaded gasoline ... Hoffman knows the intelligence world well and has expertly used recently declassified documents to tell this unsettling and suspenseful story. It is an old cliché that any true story about espionage resembles the best of John Le Carré's fiction. That’s especially true here. The Billion Dollar Spy reads like the most taut and suspenseful parts of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or Smiley’s People. It’s worth the clenched jaw and upset stomach it creates."
—USA Today

"The Billion Dollar Spy not only chronicles the life and motives of [Soviet engineer Adolph] Tolkachev but also provides a rare look at the dangerous, intricately choreographed tradecraft behind old-school intelligence gathering ... What [Hoffman]’s accomplished here isn’t just a remarkable example of journalistic talent but also an ability to weave an absolutely gripping nonfiction narrative."
—Dallas Morning News 

"Hoffman excels at conveying both the tradecraft and the human vulnerabilities involved in spying."
—The New Yorker

"David Hoffman is a scrupulous, meticulous writer whose pages of footnotes and references attest to how carefully he sticks to his sources ... His book’s value is in its true-life adventure story and the window it offers into a once-closed world."
—Columbus Dispatch

"The fine first sentence of The Billion Dollar Spy could almost have been written with an icicle. A work of painstaking historical research that’s paced like a thriller."
—Departures

"Hoffman [proves] that nonfiction can read like a John le Carré thriller ... This real-life tale of espionage will hook readers from the get-go."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Hoffman carefully sets the scene with both cautious and free-wheeling CIA directors and staff and also provides intimate details that prove fascinating and give human faces to these brave participants, including spies often known by code names and encountered in 'fast drops.' The book’s hero—who gave the U.S. technological information worth billions, with the technology still in use today—is Adolf Tolkachev, a Russian engineer, and Hoffman’s revealing of him as a person and a spy is brilliantly done, making this mesmerizing true story scary and thrilling."
—Booklist, starred review

"Gripping and informative ... Focusing on Adolf Tolkachev, who served as a spy inside the Soviet Union for more than 20 years before being betrayed, the author sets out to write the story of a spy and in so doing, chronicles Cold War espionage and an overall compelling tale that draws on secret documents from the CIA as well as interviews with surviving participants. Hoffman succeeds on both accounts."
—Library Journal

"This painstakingly researched tale reads like le Carré"
—Details

“David Hoffman has written one of the best real-life spy stories ever told. This is a breakthrough book in intelligence writing, drawing on CIA operational cables—the holy grail of the spy world—to narrate each astonishing move. Hoffman reveals CIA tradecraft tricks that are more delicious than anything in a spy novel, and his command of the Soviet landscape is masterful. Full of twists so amazing you couldn’t make them up, this is spy fact that really is better than fiction.”   
—David Ignatius, Washington Post columnist and author of The Director

“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. The Billion Dollar Spy is an espionage thriller worthy of John Le Carré but much more than that. It is also an evocative portrait of everyday life in the crumbling Soviet Union and a meticulously researched guide to CIA sources and methods. I devoured every word, including the footnotes.”
—Michael Dobbs, author of One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War
 
“A scrupulously researched work of history that is also a gripping thriller, The Billion Dollar Spy by David E. Hoffman is an unforgettable journey into Cold War espionage. This spellbinding story pulses with the dramatic tension of running an agent in Soviet-era Moscow—where the KGB is ubiquitous and CIA officers and Russian assets are prey. I was enthralled from the first instance of a CIA officer ‘going dark’ all the way to the terrible, tragic climax.”
—Peter Finn, co-author of The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book
 
“The Billion Dollar Spy reads like the very best spy fiction yet is meticulously drawn from real life. It is a gripping story of courage, professionalism, and betrayal in the secret world.”
—Rodric Braithwaite, British Ambassador in Moscow, 1988-1992

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