THE TRUTH THAT KILLED by Georgi Markov Translated by Liliana Brisby Ticknor & Fields; 280 pages; $15.95
As he crossed London's Waterloo Bridge one September afternoon in 1978, a middle-aged foreigner was jostled by a man with an umbrella. The encounter looked as harmless as the weather; in fact, it was to recall the more lurid adventures of 007. For the foreigner was Bulgarian Georgi Markov, the stranger was a hired assassin, and the umbrella tip held a pellet loaded with ricin, a deadly poison. The notorious "umbrella murder" occurred because of the information contained in this chilling memoir, written after the...