Russian Roulette is a compelling and deftly written compilation of what we already know about the Trump-Russia affair. Outside of a few gems, the book—written by veteran investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn—contains many of the names and vignettes any hardcore viewer of MSNBC will already be familiar with. Still, it is the most complete look yet at all the pieces at play on Putin’s chessboard, and it frequently sizzles with intensity.
Perhaps most impressively, Isikoff and Corn blend their work together seamlessly—it’s impossible to tell who wrote which part. What carefully emerges is a reasoned march from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant through Trump’s first meeting with Putin as president. Corn himself was the first to break the Steele Dossier news in the pages of Mother Jones (minus the scandalous alleged golden shower material).
Readers will smack their foreheads as they read about the many chances our government had to alert the public to the crimes as they were being committed. For a host of reasons, alarm bells were drowned out, and one might blame the partisan divide that’s paralyzed our statecraft. In truth, we found ourselves under attack in a way we had never expected. And we reacted slowly and incompetently to that attack.
Even when Russian Roulette spells out fragments that have been well-covered in the press, the entire tale still has the whiff of fiction. How could our nation find itself in a situation this ridiculous?