Russo...and Dezenhall...weave an engrossing tale ... This book adds knowledge to recent works such as Jack Barksy's Deep Undercover and Eva Dillon's Spies in the Family ... Highly recommended for those who miss the show The Americans and others who immerse themselves in intelligence intrigue.
The fact that neither [writer] is a historian brings a certain freshness to their narrative. Fast-paced and lively, Best of Enemies is suitable for the general reader with an interest in Cold War espionage, although its chatty tone and the authors’ evident admiration for their subjects can become tiresome ... Best of Enemies can be read as a lament for a world in which mutually assured destruction brought a strange kind of stability ... That world is long gone, leaving in its wake something much more perilous.
A rollicking tale of Cold War espionage ... Russo...and Dezenhall...offer a well-researched account ... Russo and Dezenhall aptly capture this complex narrative, based on its protagonists’ long-classified recollections, though the focus on their outsized personalities can be repetitive. An unusual, entertaining story of steadfast friendship amid governmental treachery.
[KGB officer Gennady Semyovich] Vasilenko’s imprisonment and torture highlights the brutality and corruption that makes the modern Russian judicial system a fitting heir to the Soviet gulag ... This is an informative and exciting history for the general reader and for the espionage expert alike.
