Inside the Aquarium: The Making of a Soviet Spy

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Readers of the author's Inside Soviet Intelligence will be further enlightened by this brisk, readable account of his recruitment and training as an agent of Russia's ultra-secret GRU intelligence group. Suvorov, a tank-company commander when he was selected for army spy work, recounts his early low-level days as an officer in various posts (tracking NATO troop movements, working with saboteurs, etc.), then describes his three years at the GRU's secret training academy in Moscow and subsequent assignments at the agency's headquarters (the ``Aquarium'') and as an agent in Vienna and elsewhere. Suvorov, who now lives in England, recalls the testing and screening by stern, ruthless superiors, and offers many insights into Soviet information-gathering abroad. Conservative Book Club dual main selection; BOMC alternate. (April)

Library Journal

Another revelation from this well- known Soviet defector (author of In side the Soviet Army and Inside Soviet Intelligence) , this time on Soviet mili tary intelligence, the GRU (``Aquari um'' is its headquarters). The story be gins with Suvorov's recruitment into military intelligence, carries through his training as a spy and posting to the Soviet embassy in Vienna, and ends with his defection to the British. The book is easy to read, giving consider able detail on how Soviet military intel ligence work is done and on the training of Soviet special forces troops. Only in telligence insiders can evaluate the ac curacy of the material here; for the rest of us, this is an interesting account of Soviet spycraft. For most libraries. BOMC alternate; Conservative Book Club dual main selection. Edward Gibson, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, Va.