Induction into the GRU, the elite Soviet military-intelligence agency, begins with a film strip of a traitorous agent being burned alive. They know how to hook someone's attention, and so does Suvorov, as he describes his journey from armor officer, to Spetsnaz operative, to GRU agent.

The earlier parts of the book, as tanker and special forces soldier, carry with them a lot of joy. As Suvorov enters The Aquarium, the story becomes much more bleak, in the vein of a Red John Le Carre. GRU agents, even if there are the elite of the elite, are divided into Vikings who run foreign agents, gathering intelligence and the accolades, and Borzois, who do the necessary leg work of arranging cars, checking dead drops, and smuggling items and people across borders. The life of a spy is one of constants tests of loyalty to the Soviet Union, and betrayals of friends and countrymen of less than impeccable secrecy. Suvorov defects because he fails to become a Viking, because the ladder of prestige he was climbing for his entire career runs out, and because he couldn't face failure back home. Better to face an uncertain future in the West than the crematorium.

It seems that Suvorov shaded some personal details, for example he defected with an unmentioned wife and child, but this is a stark and stunning depiction of the paranoia that spies live under, and the balance of terror of the Soviet system, with hidden knives pointing from the Party to the KGB to the GRU. One of my favorite moments was Suvorov realizing the revolution is always served by criminals and incompetents, who's treason is revealed the moment they're dead. Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and their lackeys, all were traitors to the impossible ideal of absolute power.