The Hollow Nickel: The Brooklyn Coin That Exposed a Soviet Spy Network (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798187945061)

A five-cent coin splits open in a Brooklyn apartment building. Inside is a microphotograph filled with rows of coded numbers. The FBI can examine the altered metal, study the foreign typewriter, and recognize the signs of Soviet espionage, but it cannot read the message or identify the intelligence officers behind it. For four years, the hollow nickel remains evidence of a Russian spy network that investigators know exists but cannot see.Then a frightened Soviet intelligence officer defects and gives the FBI its first path inside the operation. His information leads agents through false identities, coded communications, dead drops hidden across New York City, and the quiet Brooklyn studio of the man publicly known as Rudolf Abel. Drawing on official FBI histories, court records, and diplomatic sources, The Hollow Nickel reconstructs one of the most remarkable counterintelligence investigations of the Cold War. It reveals how patient forensic work, a compromised defector, and an ordinary coin helped expose a Soviet illegal operating under the identity of a dead American child. This is the documented true story behind the famous Hollow Nickel case, told without invented dialogue, fabricated scenes, or spy-thriller mythology.

Author: Charles Colby
ISBN-13: 9798187945061
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 07/19/2026
Pages: 98
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.29lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.25d