ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING! This tells you everything you were wondering about the dictator Putin and his rise to power in post-cold war Russia. THrilling, evocative, and so informational, I couldn't put it down!

This is an inside look at Russia's dangerous obsession with eliminating those they seek as a threat and the methods they use to get rid of them. The author's extensive research is obvious as you read, as there are a lot of things that I haven't heard before.

It's taken me a while to decide how I wanted to approach this review. As a longtime Russia-watcher, I felt the book far oversimplified a murky, mafia-filled political world into a battle royal between Putin and Berezovsky, ignoring people and events that didn't fit this master narrative (like Khodorkovsky's second trial and how much of a thorn in Putin's side he was and still is). As Buzzfeed journalism, it also fails to cite its sources in any useful way. It also suggests that key people in the UK failed to act due to Russian pressure.

For all its shortcomings, though, Blake is a great writer, and the book is engaging as a true crime narrative. The book may help chip away the strongman veneer that many people still buy into when it comes to Putin, revealing the network of corruption and crime that placed him in power. It puts faces to the names in news articles, revealing the grieving family members and stunned neighbors left in the wake of these assassinations. It should, perhaps, be read in conjunction with other sources on Putin's Russia.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a digital ARC for the purpose of an unbiased review.

This is a sobering look at the lengths Vladimir Putin will go to in order to torture and murder anyone who opposes his iron fist over Russia and the former Soviet republics. Heidi Blake focuses particularly on the oligarchs who took refuge in the UK once Putin took over from Yeltsin. They thought they had put in a grey man who could be easily manipulated, just like Yeltsin, but right from the get-go, Putin showed that he was in charge and would go to any lengths to keep power and wealth to himself. This included staging terrorist attacks against Russians so he could attack Chechnya and make Chechens an enemy people could focus on. The bombing of apartment blocks in Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk was a PR stunt by the FSG (secret service) to bolster Putin's approval ratings right before the 1999 election. The terrorist attack at the Moscow theatre and the Beslan school siege were all orchestrated by the FSG to manipulate public sympathies and keep Putin in charge as the strong man.

These are all side-stories though. The oligarchs who thought they would hold power after installing Putin to replace Yeltsin fled, mostly to the UK, because the law there was very lax when it came to investigating fraud and theft on the magnitude that these oligarchs had carried out as the Soviet Union crumbled. In fact, the UK welcomed their money and investments.

These men lived in high style and were welcomed into the upper echelons of society but they were also funding groups that were fighting for democracy -- not for an end goal of democracy, but in hopes that it would erode Putin's power. For example, they channeled money into the various colour revolutions -- the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Rose Revolution in Georgia in the hopes of getting a sweet deal afterwards with the new government. When it didn't work out for them, they'd work against those same groups.

But over the years, Putin orchestrated the assassination of each one of them, often in full view and with little investigation (and often outright cover-up) on the part of the British.

While the CIA was much more adept at keeping defectors safe, the US was not immune to assassinations either, although it was rare.

A compelling and sickening read. Kudos to Heidi Blake and Buzzfeed for what they've been able to do.

Gripping nonfiction that reads like an espionage thriller. Would recommend to readers who enjoyed Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, Black Edge by Sheelah Kolhatkar, and A Very Expensive Poison by Luke Harding.