On November 1, 2006, journalist and Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London. He died twenty-two days later. The cause of death? Polonium--a rare, lethal, and highly radioactive substance. Here Luke Harding unspools a real-life political assassination story--complete with KGB, CIA, MI6, and Russian mobsters. He shows how Litvinenko's murder foreshadowed the killings of other Kremlin critics, from Washington, DC, to Moscow, and how these are tied to Russia's current misadventures in Ukraine and Syria. In doing so, he becomes a target himself and unearths a chain of corruption and death leading straight to Vladimir Putin. From his investigations of the downing of flight MH17 to the Panama Papers, Harding sheds a terrifying light on Russia's fracturing relationship with the West.

Originally published: London : Guardian Books ; Faber and Faber Ltd., 2016. Includes index.

Prologue. The men from Moscow--Mafia state--Journalist, exile, campaigner, spy--First deployment--The German waiter--Murder in Mayfair--A bit of a puzzle--Ruslan and Lyudmila--An inspector calls--Death of a oligarch--Gelsemium elegans--A small victorious war--The inquiry--Leviathan--Blunt force--The man who solved his own murder.