by Kati Marton
First published 2017
Kati Marton tells the true story of Noel Field, an American diplomat who chose Stalin over his own country. Field grew up privileged and attended Ivy League schools. He worked for the US State Department but secretly spied for the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s. The Great Depression had shattered American confidence. Communism promised to fix society's problems. Field believed these promises and joined the underground Communist movement. He passed secrets to Moscow for years. Then Stalin turned on him. The KGB kidnapped Field and tortured him. They forced him to testify against fellow Communists in show trials across Eastern Europe. Marton uses family letters, Soviet police files, and records about figures like Alger Hiss and Allen Dulles. She shows how a well-educated American became a fanatic willing to betray his country, only to discover that his new masters viewed him as expendable.
Genres: biography, historical-fiction, 20th-century, american, espionage, political-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: deception, idealism-vs-pragmatism, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Eastern Europe, Moscow, United States
Period: 1930s, 1940s
304 pages · Paperback · Simon & Schuster
Content warnings: torture