The Man with the Poison Gun

Late in the summer of 1961, a KGB assassin defected to West Germany. Bogdan Stashinsky had already travelled on numerous occasions to Munich, where he’d single-handedly tracked down and killed enemies of the communist regime. His weapon, a unique, top-secret design, killed without leaving a trace.

Just hours before the border closed and work began on the Berlin Wall, Stashinsky crossed into West and spilled his secrets to the authorities. His trial revealed a gripping tale of exploding parcels, fake identities, forbidden love and a daring midnight escape. His life would serve as inspiration for Ian Fleming’s final novel.

And this would not be the end of the intrigue. It appears that Stashinsky was released from prison long before he served out his sentence. Counting world leaders among his enemies, he changed his face, changed his name and disappeared. The last word had it that he’d gone to South Africa. He may still be living there today…

Author Biography

Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard and the director of the university’s Ukrainian Research Institute. A leading authority on Eastern Europe, he is the author of several books including The Last Empire, which won the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize in 2015. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.