The extensively researched and well-told story of a Soviet spy who didn’t get caught. George Koval was born in Iowa, moved to the Soviet Union with his parents, was recruited by the GRU and returned to America where he joined the Army, worked on the Manhattan Project, and provided his handlers in Moscow with information that helped accelerate the Soviet nuclear program.

Koval was a skillful and astute spy, which extended to his knowing when to get out of America, ahead of the House Un-American Activities Committee and FBI, and return to the USSR where he became a professor of chemistry at the same school where he received his degree before his return to the U.S. years earlier. Koval spent eight years here on a “business trip,” ultimately a success for the Soviet Union. ( )

The story of the last known USSR atom bomb spy to escape the US. From mid-1940s until nearly the present. Not a whodunit, although there are plenty of false leads. This is a serious piece of reporting, meant to provide a basis for other research. Meticulous descriptions. Real conversations. Imagined where not known and acknowledged as such. With the participants dying off, this had to be written now ( )