The 2006 poisoning of the former KGB agent turned dissident Alexander Litvinenko by radioactive polonium captured the world’s imagination. In this less than crystalline account, New York Times
London bureau chief Cowell plays up the spy-thriller intrigue. Building Litvinenko almost into a miniseries protagonist—he was “[h]usband, father, traitor, whistleblower, son, spy, lover, fugitive”—Cowell recaps his career as a KGB functionary and then critic of Russia’s postcommunist kleptocracy; his relationship with tycoon Boris Berezovsky; his exile in London’s murky Russian expat community and outspoken attacks on Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he denounced, from his deathbed, as his killer. Cowell’s analysis of the crime and the investigation, especially his retracing of the tell-tale trail of polonium, is repetitive and often confusing. He characterizes the murder sometimes as a brazen act of “nuclear terrorism” intended to restart the Cold War, sometimes as a careful, surreptitious hit. The question of whodunit—Putin? Berezovsky? vengeful KGB veterans? Russian businessmen exposed by Litvinenko’s private sleuthing? to protect the Italian prime minister, Romano Prodi, of all people?—flounders inconclusively among competing conspiracy theories. Cowell relishes the mystery of the case, but doesn’t dispel it. (Aug. 5)
