THE NOBEL PRIZE
by Yuri Krotkov
Translated by Linda Aldwinckle
Simon & Schuster; 348 pages; $12.95
When Yuri Krotkov defected to the West in 1963, carrying a microfilmed manuscript detailing his experiences as a Soviet secret police agent, he might have chosen a new career as a writer of thrillers. Certainly he had enough material in hand. One of his first assignments for the KGB involved informing on boyhood friends. Later he specialized in the sexual entrapment of foreigners. His job was to introduce ambassadors and attaches to beautiful Soviet women, known as "swallows" in...