The Lost Spy

For half a century, the case of Isaiah Oggins, a 1920s New York intellectual brutally murdered in 1947 on Stalin's orders, remained hidden in the secret files of the KGB and the FBI - a footnote buried in the rubble of the Cold War. Then, in 1992, it surfaced briefly, when Boris Yeltsin handed over a deeply censored dossier to the White House. THE LOST SPY at last reveals the truth: Oggins was one of the first Americans to spy for the Soviets.

Based on six years of international sleuthing, THE LOST SPY traces Oggins' rise in beguiling detail - a brilliant Columbia University graduate sent to run a safe house in Berlin and spy on the Romanovs in Paris and the Japanese in Manchuria - and his fall: death by poisoning in a KGB laboratory.

“THE LOST SPY is a jewel - one of those great lost spy stories from the Cold War but this one is special: the story of the shadowy life and killing of Stalin's American agent and victim. As gripping as a thriller, THE LOST SPY is part history, part biography, and part quest. - Simon Sebag Montefiore.The meteoric Russianist Andrew Meier has given us a book about the ideological delirium that possessed the planet, drawing us into a labyrinth peopled by ghosts and dreamers and carnivorous chameleons. - Martin Amis.A masterful work of historical recovery and fascinating story brilliantly told. - Orlando Figes.”

THE LOST SPY is a jewel - one of those great lost spy stories from the Cold War but this one is special: the story of the shadowy life and killing of Stalin's American agent and victim. As gripping as a thriller, THE LOST SPY is part history, part biography, and part quest. - Simon Sebag Montefiore.

The meteoric Russianist Andrew Meier has given us a book about the ideological delirium that possessed the planet, drawing us into a labyrinth peopled by ghosts and dreamers and carnivorous chameleons. - Martin Amis.

A masterful work of historical recovery and fascinating story brilliantly told. - Orlando Figes.

Andrew Meier is a former Moscow correspondent for Time magazine and the author of Black Earth, which was named a Book of the Year by the TLS, the Economist and Publishers Weekly. He lives in New York.

For half a century, the case of Isaiah Oggins, a 1920s New York intellectual brutally murdered in 1947 on Stalin's orders, remained hidden in the secret files of the KGB and the FBI - a footnote buried in the rubble of the Cold War. Then, in 1992, it surfaced briefly, when Boris Yeltsin handed over a deeply censored dossier to the White House. THE LOST SPY at last reveals the truth: Oggins was one of the first Americans to spy for the Soviets.Based on six years of international sleuthing, THE LOST SPY traces Oggins' rise in beguiling detail - a brilliant Columbia University graduate sent to run a safe house in Berlin and spy on the Romanovs in Paris and the Japanese in Manchuria - and his fall: death by poisoning in a KGB laboratory.

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