A very expensive poison : the definitive story of the murder of Litvinenko and Russia's war with the west

1 November 2006. Alexander Litvinenko is brazenly poisoned in central London. Twenty two days later he dies, killed from the inside. The poison? Polonium; a rare, lethal and highly radioactive substance. His crime? He had made some powerful enemies in Russia. Based on the best part of a decade's reporting, as well as extensive interviews with those closest to the events (including the murder suspects), and access to trial evidence, Luke Harding's A Very Expensive Poison is the definitive inside story of the life and death of Alexander Litvinenko. Harding traces the journey of the nuclear poison across London, from hotel room to nightclub, assassin to victim; it is a deadly trail that seemingly leads back to the Russian state itself. Harding argues that Litvinenko's assassination marked the beginning of the deterioration of Moscow's relations with the west and a decade of geo-political disruptions - from the war in Ukraine, a civilian plane shot down, at least 7,000 dead, two million people displaced and a Russian president's defiant rejection of a law-based international order. This is a shocking real-life revenge tragedy with corruption and subterfuge at every turn, and walk-on parts from Russian mafia, the KGB, MI6 agents, dedicated British coppers, Russian dissidents. At the heart of this all is an individual and his family torn apart by a ruthless crime Title Page Prologue: The Men from Moscow 1. Mafia State 2. Journalist, Exile, Campaigner, Spy 3. First Deployment 4. The German Waiter 5. Murder in Mayfair 6. A Bit of a Puzzle 7. Ruslan and Lyudmila 8. An Inspector Calls 9. Death of an Oligarch 10. Gelsemium Elegans 11. A Small Victorious War 12. The Inquiry 13. Leviathan 14. The Man Who Solved his Own Murder A Note on Sources Acknowledgements and Photo Credits Index Photographs About the Author Copyright