The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West

In 2010, two decades after the Cold War had ended, ten Russian spies were arrested in America, having hidden their true identities from their friends, neighbours and even their children. They were part of a spy programme that had begun nearly a century earlier, when the revolutionary Bolshevik government began sending Soviet citizens abroad to pose as foreign aristocrats, merchants and students. These deep-cover missions – some remarkable feats of espionage, others high-profile failures – could last for decades.