"An intriguing spy novel written in the form of a memoir . . . Those seeking a fresh take on the genre will be satisfied."--Publishers Weekly An exciting debut for fans of The Americans and Red Sparrow. In 1964, at the height of the Cold War, Kate Landau, a young American expert on Russia, joins the CIA. Drawn to danger and adventure, she hopes to be sent to Moscow, but instead finds herself stuck in an office doing boring translations. When her big break comes, she's recruited to work undercover in New York City, investigating a KGB officer posing as a UN diplomat. Exactly the kind of work she'd hoped for. The KGB officer is not a stranger. She'd met him in Moscow years before when he was a handsome university student named Max and she was a naive American college girl visiting the Soviet Union on a rare friendship tour. Max had been her first lover. She still treasures the little gold key he'd given her one memorable night in a Moscow park. When Kate and Max meet up again in New York and inevitably resume their love affair, it is passionate, but fraught with distrust and secret agendas. A series of dangerous events lead Kate to fear for her life--and to suspect the man who is both her lover and her enemy. Against a background of Soviet brutality and international intrigue, The Russian Key will keep you guessing as it builds to its shocking and unexpected climax.

After Jeri Laber earned a Master's degree in Russian studies at Columbia University, she became a part-time writer and editor and a full-time wife and mother. Then one day in 1973 she read an article about torture that altered her life and subsequently the lives of countless others around the world. The Courage of Strangers tells how Laber became a founder and the executive director of Helsinki Watch, which grew to be Human Rights Watch, one of the world's most influential organizations. She describes her secret trips to unwelcoming countries, where she met with some of the great political activists of the time. She also recalls what it was like to come of age professionally in an era when women were supposed to follow rather than lead how she struggled to balance work and family and how her fight for human rights informed her own intellectual, spiritual and emotional development. This story of the birth of the human rights movement is also a sweeping history of dissent and triumph in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Elegantly written, full of passion, humour and political wisdom, it is exciting history as well as a moving, entertaining, inspiring story of a woman's life.