Dead Doubles

"As compelling as a spy novel" (Booklist), the astonishing but true story of the extraordinary worldwide hunt for one of the cold war’s most notorious spy rings.

“Excellent and riveting, with a cast of characters as engaging as in any novel. The themes of Dead Doubles—deception, betrayal, blackmail, chemical and biological weapons, atomic secrets, international rivalry—are as topical today as in the 1960s.”—John Sipher, Former Head, CIA Russian Operations, and CIA Station Chief in Asia and Europe

In 1960, when the CIA informed MI5 that a KGB agent was stealing crucial secrets from the world-leading submarine research base, it looked like a dangerous but contained lapse of security by a British man and his mistress. Surveilling the lovers, MI5 soon discovered the pair were part of a secret Soviet spy ring whose members included two of the most important Russian “illegals” ever—whom the Americans had been hunting for years-—and their handler, a senior KGB controller posing as a Canadian businessman.

Based on secret MI5 and FBI files, private family archives, and original interviews, Dead Doubles recounts in riveting detail this incredible spy hunt for the first time. As gripping as a le Carré novel, this intricate narrative, layered with false identities, deceptions, and betrayal, crisscrosses from the UK to the USSR to the United States, Canada, Europe, and New Zealand, and brings to life one of the most extraordinary spy stories of the Cold War that offers insight for us today.