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So about two years ago I decided to write my next book about an obscure spy named George Koval, and I was super excited about it, and you’ll see why in a second.

Born in Iowa in 1913, the son of immigrants from Belarus, Koval grew up in Sioux City and graduated high school at 15. Soon after, his family disappeared. Only later—decades later—did friends learn he and his parents had moved to the Soviet Union. By this time a committed communist, Koval earned a chemistry degree in Moscow. At some point after graduation, he was recruited by the GRU, the Soviet military intelligence agency, and trained as a spy.

Early in 1940, Koval stepped off a boat in San Francisco. Using his real name and his prefect Midwestern English, Koval resumed life as an American. When drafted soon after the start of World War II, Koval’s test scores were so high, the Army sent him for advanced technical training—having no idea, of course, the man already had a science degree. Army buddies later described Koval as friendly, funny, and a damn good shortstop. Like any trained spy, Koval showed no interest in politics. The only odd thing about the guy, friends said, was that he never had to study.

Then, in 1944, Koval got the kind of lucky break spy agencies rely on. The Army assigned him to the Manhattan Project, and sent him to the top-secret Oak Ridge plant in Tennessee, where Oppenheimer’s scientists were enriching uranium for the world’s first atomic bomb. Koval’s job was to monitor radiation levels in the plant, giving him clearance to go everywhere, see everything.

Historians think he was sending reports to the GRU all the while, but they’ve found no evidence, no decrypted telegrams. We do know he was honorably discharged after the war and that he moved to New York City. In 1948 he told friends he was thinking of going on vacation in Europe. Then he vanished.

Just a year later, Soviet scientists tested their first atomic bomb, years ahead of the CIA’s estimate of when they’d be ready. American intelligence agencies realized spies had stolen atomic secrets, and began looking for suspects. The FBI began investigating George Koval. But by then he was back home in Russia.

It’s an incredible story. You’ve got this elusive hero/villain caught up in an historical event of epic importance. I was sure I had the material for an amazing non-fiction book. As a first step I made a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI, asking for Koval’s file. And they sent me the whole thing on a CD!

It was a gold mine. Or so I thought, until I started to plow through the documents. The file has over 1,000 pages of notes and interviews by F.B.I. agents, but no one the agents talked to seemed to know Koval very well. And the few promising parts, and most of the names of potential characters, were blacked out by government censors.

I started calling experts on Cold War espionage, and everyone referred me to a scholar named Robert Norris. Norris generously shared his knowledge of the Koval case, which he too finds fascinating, but he ended our conversation wit

The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, and Treachery Steve Sheinkin

I think that Sheinkin gets nominated every year, and I know he’s made it through to the short list at least once. There’s a reason why-- he’s just that good. Sheinkin has a way of telling a story, even one you think you’ve heard before and making it completely riveting. In this book he takes on Benedict Arnold, American hero and traitor. It’s a rip-roaring yarn of fierce battles, crazy stunts, and incredible bravery that then goes completely wrong when Arnold does the unthinkable. Although we’re still unsure as to WHY he did it, we get a much more complete picture of the man than we usually do. Sheinkin can really bring history alive.

I hope he takes on Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys soon!

Book Provided by... my local library

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I don’t often quote the ancient Greeks, mostly because I don’t know what they said, but there’s one Herodotus line that has always stuck with me. Describing the difficult craft of writing compelling, fact-based history, he said: "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all.” His solution, as he put it, was to “correct these defects,” by rearranging and inventing his way to a great story. Too bad non-fiction writers don’t have that luxury.

I’ve been wrestling with this problem recently, as I toss around ideas for possible book projects. It’s always fun to throw open my notebooks and let ideas I’ve jotted down over the years jump out and fight for attention. The bad part comes when I get excited about one of the stories, begin researching it, and realize I’m facing the old Herodotus dilemma.

Sometimes it’s a simple of matter of not knowing. Take pirates, for example. Everyone loves these thieving murderers (including my 4-year-old daughter), but there’s a serious shortage of primary sources, and hardly anything from the pirates’ own point of view. Even the best, most exhaustively researched adult pirate books are riddled with lines like, “Blackbeard may very well have said…” and “It was at this point that Bartholomew Roberts probably decided…” The most painful false lead of all involves an 11-year-old boy named John King. What we know is that in November 1716, somewhere in the Caribbean, King and his mother were on a ship that was boarded and plundered by the pirate Sam Bellamy. King declared he wanted to join Bellamy’s crew. His mom said no. The boy threatened to throw himself into the sea unless he was allowed to become a pirate. His mom let him go.

Shouldn’t this be the opening scene of an all-time great middle grade history book? The story has everything: a young protagonist, action, danger, glimpses into an exotic world, and, in the end, tragedy. In 2006 underwater archaeologists found the remains of Bellamy’s ship, which sank off the coast of Cape Cod in 1717. Among the wreckage were the bones of a boy of about 12. So King was on the ship for a year, and there’s no doubt his adventures during that year could pack a ripping non-fiction book. Only, we can’t know what those adventures were. With great reluctance, a writer of non-fiction has to pass on John King. Maybe put it on the list of historical fiction to write some day.

Then there’s the tantalizing tale of Elijah Nicholas Wilson, another adventure-seeking 11 year old. In the early 1850s, Wilson ran away from his frontier home (he was sick of herding sheep) to live with a Shoshone chief named Washakie and his family. He learned the lang

In my ten years as a history textbook writer, I was constantly trying to sneak Benedict Arnold into my American Revolution manuscript. The editors were constantly cutting him out.

I’ll never forget my first attempt. I proposed introducing Arnold early in the Revolution unit. Most kids know he was a traitor, I told the editors, but few know what he actually did. So right away his presence adds this spark of mystery and danger. And as we follow him through the narrative, as we do with Washington, we’re surprised to see that he’s the star of some of the greatest adventure stories in American history. I pitched a little lesson opener, set in the raucous tax protest days of 1760s New England, in which Arnold drags a sailor—a man who informed on Arnold’s smuggling—out of a tavern and whips him in the New Haven town square.

There was a long silence in our conference room. The editors exchanged glances. They appeared to be in a small amount of physical pain.

“Benedict Arnold makes me… nervous,” said one.

“Me too,” said the other.  

I wanted to shout: That’s exactly the point! That’s what makes Arnold such a priceless character. He made George Washington nervous. He made Congress nervous. He was a loose-cannon action hero two centuries before Hollywood discovered the genre!

Instead, I moved on, and tried again later, and failed again, and tried more, and eventually gave up. But what can only be described as my Arnold obsession lived on. I spent weekends and holidays driving to the places Arnold lived and fought. And I soon discovered that historical sites are just like textbooks: Benedict Arnold makes them nervous.

In Norwich, Connecticut, the town where Arnold was born and raised, you can search out one obscure sign, at the site of his boyhood home. And it’s not even official; it was posted by a local jeweler. In New Haven, where he rose to local prominence as a rabblerousing Patriot, there’s nothing. At the Saratoga battlefield park, where Arnold led Americans to their “turning point” victory, there’s a statue of Arnold’s lower leg, the leg wounded in Arnold’s furious charge at the British. The plaque speaks of “the most brilliant soldier of the Continental Army.” Arnold’s name doesn’t appear.

The best Arnold signage is found along the route of his incredible march through the unmapped wilderness of Maine, en route to attack Quebec in the fall/winter of 1775. But even these signs are few, far between, and rusted—until you cross the line into Canada. Then you see Arnold plaques, the Arnold River, even hotels and bars named for Arnold.

I guess it’s that, as a country, we don’t handle contradiction well. We like our heroes pure, comic book-like. George Washington must be presented this way, as I learned from painful experience as a textbook writer. Of course, that’s why kids think Washington is unbearably boring.

Now it’s time to bring back Benedict Arnold. Not to apologize for him, not to absolve him from guilt, but to celebrate his story. A country only gets a few cracks at tragic adventure tales this good. Let’s face it: Washington never did any