Acquired Characteristics - Paperback

by George A. Platz (Author)

Russian journalist Leo Krakin pursues an unusual second job in an unlikely time and place--as a private investigator in the Soviet Union of the early 1960s. He takes on a seemingly simple task of finding a professor's missing manuscript that draws him and his girlfriend Anya into a complex plot involving a murder and an audacious Cold War deception regarding weapons of mass destruction. In the course of his investigation, Krakin must deal with the KGB, the Soviet Academy of Science and its director T. D. Lysenko, the Soviet Army, a black market kingpin, a mysterious American agent and a wealthy American publisher, and a key Soviet government leader. Krakin evades one threat after another, only to face a choice that, if he survives, will determine the course of the rest of his life.

Author Biography

George A. Platz was born in a small town in Arizona and grew up on a dirt road in Iowa. After studying at Northwestern University, Harvard, and the London School of Economics, he practiced law, retiring in 2002. He maintains residences in rural Michigan, rural Arizona and Illinois. He has also written another novel entitled Hawk Island, a collection of essays on becoming a weekend farmer, Arizona history research papers, and a play entitled Loyalists.