Narrator mispronounces many Russian words giving neither the Russian pronunciation nor the usual English. He even mispronounces some English words, and his phrasing is sometimes very odd, as if he doesn’t know what is coming next but just reading words. Myers’ work, however, is brilliant, impressively researched and written to keep interest high even when relating masses of facts and figures. He manages to give positive reasons for Putin’s popularity and glimpses of the humanity of the secretive KGB operative who became a cruel dictator over time.