Overview

In 2017, the world's most expensive painting sold for a record $450 million. Twelve years earlier, it went under the hammer for $1,175, lacking the description: 'the only privately-owned Leonardo Da Vinci'. In this deeply-researched book, historian Yuri Felshtinsky traces the nebulous connections behind this miraculous increase in value. His story is as complex and intricate as Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and leads from the Kremlin to Donald Trump via oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev, art dealer Yves Bouvier, Freeports and the world's most expensive private residence, located in Florida.

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9781783342495

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Previous praise ‘Infamous history of the KGB… worthy of John le Carré.’ Daily Telegraph ‘Very interesting in its long lines to the world’s present predicament.’  Paolo Valentino, Corriere della Sera ‘A scholarly and scrupulous analysis as well as a dark crime story which describes a bloodthirsty monster so slippery that it has so far defied description.’ Viktor Suvorov, ex-GRU colonel and historian ‘[L]eading authorities on Russian assassinations.’ Bill Browder ‘[A] compelling history of the deep-seated thirst for carnage endemic in Russia’s intelligence services. A magisterial work by two of its foremost experts.’ Oleg Kalugin, ex-KGB general  ‘Destined to become the standard work.’ Yuri Shvets, ex-KGB resident in Washington DC and former Putin classmate ‘Unputdownable.’ Martin Dewhirst, Sakharov Centre ‘Truly interesting.’ Victor Sebestyen ‘Meticulous and timely… many new facts.’ Former French ambassador Eugène Berg, La Revue Defénse Nationale ‘We come across a thousand spies and double agents and as many secretivene and camouflaged assassinations as “accidents”… How the Cheka, the political police created by the Bolsheviks and Lenin in the aftermath of the October Revolution, quickly became autonomous from political power and from all—powerful Communist Party to defend its own political line as well as its members, with one objective: one day to upset our world order.’  Romain Gubert, Le Point ‘A powerful dissection of a secret and sprawling institution whose members—if they do not succumb to novichok, indigestion, or the law of gravity first—know that they can never retire. Bruno Deniel-Laurent, Revue des Deux Mondes

Author Information

Yuri Felshtinsky was a Fellow of the Hoover Institution, University of Stanford. He wrote bestseller Blowing up Russia with Alexander Litvinenko. He holds doctorates from the Rutgers University and the Moscow Academy of Sciences, and is one of the world's foremost experts on Russia's oligarchs.

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