Heidi Blake

From Russia with Blood Heidi Blake

Taking readers on thrilling ride inside the high-rolling underworld of Russia's exiled oligarchs, award-winning journalist Heidi Blake (Buzzfeed) illuminates Putin's alarming assassination campaign and the West's shocking attempts to cover them up In 2014, Scot Young plummeted from the window of his London penthouse. Despite his repeated warnings to friends, family, and the police that he was being tailed by a Russian hit-squad, and the deaths of his eight associates, British police declared Young's fall a suicide and shut the case within minutes of arriving on the scene. For years, Young was a high-rolling British fixer for a ring of exiled Russian oligarchs, most notably Boris Berezovsky, who brought with them extensive organized crime connections and came to the UK tailed by teams of Russian spies deployed to track their every move. Public enemies of Putin, these emigres extracted enormous wealth from Russia and openly criticized Putin's regime, using their power and influence abroad to raise questions about an emboldened FSB. As tensions rose, bodies began to mysteriously pile up, yet any British investigations were uncomfortably subdued and quickly shut down. Based on 250 boxes of documents, years of reporting, and interviews with hundreds of associates, From Russia With Blood tells this story, revealing how the death of Berezovsky, Young, and countless others can be linked to Putin's assassination program--and how Western governments are failing to protect those living abroad against the threat.