{"product_id":"defectors-colton-reiss-9798189893384","title":"Defectors: The Shocking True Story of Spies, Assassins, Pilots, and Insiders Who Risked Everything","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhat makes a person abandon a country, betray an intelligence service, steal a military aircraft, expose a secret weapons program, or walk into an embassy knowing there may be no way back?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor some, defection was an act of conscience.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor others, it was survival.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor many, it was something far more complicated.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eTHE MOMENT EVERYTHING CHANGED\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eA Soviet assassin enters a West Berlin police station and confesses to two murders carried out with a hidden poison weapon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA young North Korean pilot turns his MiG south and lands without warning at an American air base.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA KGB officer refuses an assassination order and warns the intended victim.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA dancer breaks from his guards at a Paris airport.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA colonel arrives with military plans that could alter the balance of power.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA scientist reveals the existence of plague factories his government insisted did not exist.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA spy chief escapes with an archive capable of exposing agents, operations, and decades of deception.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese were not ordinary refugees. They were insiders with access to guarded rooms, classified files, secret laboratories, military aircraft, intelligence networks, and the private machinery of authoritarian power.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen they crossed the line, they carried more than information.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThey carried evidence.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eTHE PEOPLE BEHIND THE SECRETS\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDEFECTORS\u003c\/i\u003e tells the true stories of spies, assassins, pilots, diplomats, scientists, officers, performers, and political insiders who abandoned the systems that had trained, promoted, protected, and sometimes terrorized them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTheir escapes were often dramatic, but the decision to leave could take years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSome planned quietly while rising through the ranks.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSome acted after an order they could no longer obey.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSome fled with documents hidden in luggage, vehicles, diplomatic pouches, or memory.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOthers arrived with nothing except a story that Western intelligence officers had to prove.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEvery defector presented the same urgent question: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWere they telling the truth?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSome defectors delivered intelligence of extraordinary value.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOthers were misunderstood, distrusted, imprisoned, returned, discredited, or drawn back toward the countries they had escaped.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA few discovered that leaving the state did not mean the state had finished with them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eASSASSINS, AIRCRAFT, ARCHIVES, AND POISON\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou will follow military pilots who crossed hostile airspace in stolen aircraft, intelligence officers who revealed assassination programs, diplomats who disappeared without their families, scientists who exposed biological weapons, and insiders whose testimony forced governments to confront crimes they had denied.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe stories move through divided Berlin, Moscow, Seoul, Paris, Tokyo, Washington, London, Munich, and secret installations far beyond public view.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey reveal specialized poison devices, covert surveillance, false identities, disputed confessions, secret interrogations, dangerous extractions, classified war plans, hidden archives, radioactive murder, and the devastating pressure placed on the families left behind.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet this is not a simple collection of heroes and villains.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDefection could be courageous, selfish, desperate, calculated, patriotic, treacherous, or all of these at once.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe country receiving a defector might celebrate an act of freedom. The country abandoned might condemn treason, claim kidnapping, or attack the defector's credibility. Intelligence agencies could protect a source while doubting his motives. Governments could praise the information while concealing how it was obtained.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOpen \u003ci\u003eDEFECTORS\u003c\/i\u003e and enter a world where one decision could mean freedom, imprisonment, revenge, or death.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Colton Reiss\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798189893384\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/30\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 232\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.63lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.58d","brand":"Colton Reiss","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50666031743231,"sku":"9798189893384","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_1db4c0ac-ccbb-4984-8964-46d4f7d2f3eb.jpg?v=1792015234","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/defectors-colton-reiss-9798189893384","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}