Outside and hes great about signing the books so he will be here so if you have a book come on up and if you need to get one go outside these doors. Thank you for coming. [inaudible conversations] tv is on twitter and facebook and we want to hear from you. Does or post a comment on her face page. Again, im joan, the holder of the bookstore and i hope you avoid enjoyed the video about a bookstore. We bring office to the store and i also want to mention the second part of our mission. My wife helen and i have two children in our younger child, daniel, has autism. We opened bookstores as a place to have a the conditional Printing Program for young people with autism and we had about 90 young people with autism work in our Stores Opened in 2009. That is one of our meetings we do here. Then again, as you saw the video, we begin great authors and were very excited to have amy knight here for a host of reasons. First, we believe this is the first time that weve had a mother, daughter author team. We were pledged to have Molly Knight Raskin here a few years ago for her book and we are super pleased to have her mom here with us for orders to kill. This is your 25th book, six. Six book and it tells the story about what is going on currently in moscow. Amy is one of the leader leading experts on the kgb and now the fsb and rights for the new yorkers and the details and some of the plots by bottom up and that involve tying russian leaders et cetera and its a spellbinding tale and were thrilled to president amy to you and thanks a lot so much. [applause] connect thank you for coming. I am going to start off traditionally and just tell you a little bit about myself and why i got involved in writing this book. I majored in russian studies at the university of michigan in the 60s and was a very new field but the cold war had started and michigan was putting their all into this program. I was able to learn the language and history and the politics and so on in support. Then i traveled and i mentioned this in the introduction to my book. I traveled to the socalled soviet union with some professors and students in the summer of 67 and we almost did not go because there was no crisis in the middle east and relations were not good with the soviets. We went and, of course, the Young Students did not heed what we were told by the professors to be very careful. I went off with some of the girls and we were in kiev and we started meeting these dissiden dissidents. Anyway, ended up being in someones apartment and we ended up the kgb came and knocked on the door and i spent the night being interrogated by myself by the kgb. It all ended happily because it turns out they were more interested in what my father did and what kind of car we had and they were really happy to get my marble cigarettes. I was released the next morning just in time to get my plane out of the soviet union but i never and i was always fascinated with what these people are really like. Having met them face to face. I went on and i worked at Radio Liberty in munich for two years as an editor translator and i went ahead and got my masters and phd at the London School of economics. At the lse i got my phd in russian politics and that included history as politics because the view is or was that to understand what was happening at the time you had to know the history and so i called myself actually more a historian than a political scientist but im sort of both. Anyway, i ended up moving to washington with my husband and i worked for almost 20 years at the library of congress as a soviet Russian Affairs analyst and that is when i started writing books. My first book called the kgb, police and politics of the soviet union came out in 1988 and i got this niche writing about the Security Services and i wrote then some other books including a biography of stalins police, police chief area, a book called who killed [inaudible], the kremlins greatest ministry and about the murder of Leningrad Party chief sergei in 1934. Anyway, i had a couple of other books, as well. Now we get to this book and i actually have been writing and noticing for a long time these political murders. In fact, i was thinking today that it is been almost two years since book, she was a deputy to parliament and she was gunned down brutally in st. Petersburg. At the time, i wrote a piece for the Washington Post and i said they will probably never find who killed her and sadly, i was actually right. Vladimir putin had just then become the head of the fsb which is the kjv successor and it looked very much to be when i did some research into it that at the very least the fsb had given a wink and a nod to go ahead and get rid of [inaudible]. One of the things that she did was she educated and she was a real democrat. She educated [inaudible] which meant that people who worked for the kgb and the communist party will not be allowed to serve in the government but this is not very popular and she also was quite outspoken about all the corruption that was going on in st. Petersburg and st. Petersburg, as you know, was flattered to his hometown. I think it is pretty clear that you read my chapter and see what you think about my theory is that the fsb and fundamental were involved in her murder. I talk about other political murders and i also talked into my chapters about acts of terrorism. So, when i say political murder i say it broadly to include terrorism because that has been another feature of the russian regime under bottom up. I talk about the terrorist bombings that happened in russia in september 1999, killing almost in four different Apartment Buildings killing 300 people. I think this wasnt what i said but other people and i agreed this was the russians version of 911 because it was such a terrible shock. A lot of research after that has shown that the fsb actually was involved in these bombings. Its pretty complicated story. P had just been made Prime Minister by [inaudible] and this is the 1999 and he had just and he had been head of the fsb and no one really knew who he was. Yeltsin and his supporters, the family, around him wanted mr. Putin to be a successor to yelton because he had worked for the fsb and they were concerned about what would happen to yelton and his family and some of the allies after yeltsin step down so i think most people agree that vitamin putin promised that nothing would happen to them. But in order to give him some name recognition yelton nominated him as Prime Minister and then these bombings occurred. Well the chechens were blamed and there had already been one war in chechnya and this was an excuse to launch another war in chechnya and this is what brought a huge amount of same and adoration towards bottom because he was seen as a hero who was going to get to the bottom of this and as he said he was going to wipe down those chechens and their outhouses or some other race. Anyway, i dont have time to go into all the evidence and it isnt my evidence particularly that has been gathered but other people including western scholars and investigative russian investigative journalist that pretty conclusively demonstrates i dont think theres much doubt anymore that the fsb and vitamin putin who were actually the ones were behind the bombings. While, then in my book i go on to discuss some of the individual cases of journalist and a russian opposition politician who were murdered after Vladimir Putin came to power. I talk about [inaudible] some of you may have heard of he was an american of russian descent who was in moscow as the editor of Forbes Russia when he was gunned down 2003 or 2004, excuse me and then there was sergei [inaudible], a member was a real democrat and was very outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. He was shot to death in april 2003. There were numerous other examples of journalists and politicians who were viewed has a threat by the kremlin and who died tragic deaths. Now, one of them you probably heard of them is [inaudible], she was a brilliant crusading journalist and she made 50 trips to chechnya during the Second Church in an war and she was very courageous and she worked for a journalist, an independent newspaper and she was extremely outspoken and critical of mr. Putin. She knew that she was courting danger. Several people really advised her to leave the country. She kept saying i am not leaving and i am staying here and her granddaughter, daughter was about to give birth and to her granddaughter and well, she was shot down in the stairwell of her Apartment Building and 2006. In october 2006. They have never, even though they rounded up, the people who actually shot her they never found the person who organized the murder. This is another case of an enemy of letter to who gets killed and no one finds out who actually gave the orders. Now, i have two chapters in my book about alexander who you have probably heard of. He was a defector from russia and worked for the fsb or the kgb first and then the fsb and he was still living in russia and in 1998 he was asked to assassinate and oligarch. Instead of curing out the assassination and following the orders of the fsb, his employers, he held a press conference with some of his colleagues and announced that they had been asked to do this. Well, as you might well understand, this did not make him very popular and was put in prison and finally he knew that he was risking his life staying in russia as he defected to london with his family, with his wife marina and his son anatoly. Rena, by the way, becomes friends with and the book is dedicated to her widow because shes been helpful with me and i have two chapters of my book about this case. I will fastforward and i will say i went over to london several times when they had the hearings in the high court in london and it was an inquiry into the murder in 2015 and i went over there in 2016 and attended the hearings and did some interviews so just to give you a little background why what happened and it seems as though these two men were hired by the fsb to murder [inaudible]. One of them, andrzej made friends with him and started coming to london and was trying to get consulting work with [inaudible] and apparently he didnt really have any concern or didnt have knowing that he was employed by the fsb so in the meantime he had devoted himself to writing scathing criticisms of bottom. Boris the oligarch i mentioned earlier had moved to london and the two of them had this campaign and it was financed by him bite because he was wealthy and they publicize everything they could about the corruption and the authoritarianism and Everything Else about what americans regime. He was not very wellliked and in november 2006 he and another gentleman came to london and they brought with him polonium 210 which is a lethal, radioactive substance and we now know that they tried to poison him with polonium two weeks earlier and it did not work. He got sick for nothing happened. This time in the pine bar of the Millennium Hotel in london they put polonium 210 in this teapot and he came in and sat down with them and he drank some of the tea. He got very ill and at first they thought it was Food Poisoning and it took him three weeks to die and it was only on the last day, november 203rd that they actually figured out what was the cause of death. It was not supposed to be discovered and thats why polonium was chosen. Meanwhile he and the two killers lead and the British Government had tried to have them expedited that hadnt happened and he got a medal of honor from resident putin and he is now a member or has been a member a member of parliament for years now. I think the interesting thing is is that he was viewed as a traitor because he worked for the fsb and then he moved and affected and wrote all these things and oddly enough i think a lot of the russians know that he was killed by these two gentlemen and they were ordered by the fsb and mr. Putin to do it but people feel that he got what he deserved. Then i have other examples that i cant go into detail about right now but i would say one of the most devastating killings was that of boris in februar february 2015. If you recall, he was talking with his girlfriend across a bridge very close to the kremlin and people went by and someone got out of the car and shot him five or six nights. Anyway, its very interesting that the killers they arrested almost immediately the killers of him but again, if the same pattern. They dont find what we say in russian the [inaudible]. In fact, his family has now requested the russian government to extend the period or the statute of limitations because they still havent found the person who ordered this. Many people think that it was again, something that was ordered by mr. Putin. He was not only a handsome, charismatic, brilliant politician but he also and use to work, by the way is to be a minister and he knew but can personally but he had started writing these devastating reports about the corruption and the massive corruption in mr. Putins regime and right before he died he was finishing up and when i say report they are like little books. He was writing about the russians in ukraine and showing that despite their denials Russian Military was in full force in eastern ukraine. He had been warned that he said that would never kill me because i was a minister and this and that and unfortunately it happened. If youre going to talk about the view of the kremlin and their motivation to the United States and testified and lobbied in the u. S. Congress to increase the economic sanctions against russian officials. Of course, as you can imagine, putins entourage hated him. By the way, his colleague latimer was also came to the United States actually live parttime in washington but outspoken about and getting the sanctions and more officials on the sanctions list. He was poisoned price and almost died. So, this is how dangerous it is if you happen to go up against the common. Now, i also someone asked me if i thought that there had been any example of someone being murdered by the russians on us soil. We know what happened in the uk. I would have said no but interestingly enough and oligarch named [inaudible] died in Washington Dc Hotel in november 2015. He had been the head of gastro media and there was some discussion about the fact that he had gotten enemies in the government and the kremlin and in any case he was also a very heavy drinker. They found him dead and in this hotel room in washington and the initial cause of death was that he had fallen and had an accident. Recently, apparently and this is just rumor but the anonymous source from the fbi have started saying that in fact they have realized that this was not an accident and their they are still looking into. I dont know what the results of that are going to be. I didnt get a chance because of time but i should also say that one of the people who has been involved with some of these murderers is the president of chechnya. He is really a terrible, terrible dictator in chechnya and the human rights violation that he committed are absolutely appalling and in the case of a boris it looks like his henchmen were hired to camp and kill him but the kremlin doesnt seem to be able to control this man and they rely on him to keep chechnya from exploding with any unrest and rules with an iron hand and he has carried out quite a few murders on his own initiative but i just wanted to mention because i talk about him in my book. Now, someone has said and has asked me who i think would be mr. Putins next victim. Well, its a horrible thing to think about but i should put out a month ago a very wellknown journalist named [inaudible] who wrote for echo in the newspaper and she was an outspoken critic of mr. And she actually had to flee russia because her car was set on fire and earlier she had had Death Threats and she basically was terrified and i should add they funneled poisonous gas into her house and that was the final straw and she fled russia and is now living abroad. That is how bad it has gotten. The one person who i write about quite a bit now when i write for the press and for the new york review of books is alexander. Hes a very courageous anticorruption crusader and he has declared himself a candidate for the presidency and in march theyre having the elections in 2018. He is technically barred from the ballot because he has two felony charges against him. The charges stem from bogus cases. The kremlin has arrested him and in fact hes in jail right now. Pay much theyve done everything they can except kill him but to keep him from his campaign. He was really incredible. Ive seen his speeches and he has them on his plate and also he gives rousing speeches in his gun all over the country and he also has produced a series of documentaries that are just incredibly damning to the regime just showing their terrible corruption and he uses drones to fly over there mansions and he has a meticulous staff and research which will tell and show conclusively that these kremlin figures are hugely, vastly wealthy. Of course, then when he goes out and he reminds people of this so he is gaining quite a following which is why i think he was put in jail two weeks ago. I think it is a matter of concern gets out with what will happen to him because someone was saying to me they wouldnt be so stupid as to kill him but that would be going too far but then someone else said well, you know, it could be someone who does it to please mr. Putin or who knows. I hope very much that this does not happen but i thought i should bring that up. Well, quickly before i stop i will mention that here in the west there hasnt been very much reaction to all of these political murders. Weve got problems in syria. Weve got problems in ukraine, problems with north korea. And i think there is a general reluctance to face up to the fact that when youre dealing with mr. Putin, youre dealing with somebody who is a murderer. You probably are familiar with what donald trump has said about this. He has been asked on more than one occasion about the killings that putin has ordered and he has said, well, to quote him once, he said, there is no proof. There is no proof that he has done it. And another time i think it was after karza was poisoned, well