A unique biography, released in Greek simultaneously with the original English edition. "The Man Without a Face" is the chilling account of the process through which a low-ranking KGB agent ascended to the presidency of Russia.

In 1999, the "family" surrounding Boris Yeltsin began searching for a successor for the ailing president, whose popularity was steadily declining. Vladimir Putin, with minimal governmental experience, aside from his tenure as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg and a brief stint as head of the secret police, appeared to be the perfect solution: an "faceless" entity that Yeltsin and his close friends believed they could mold to their image.

Suddenly, the boy who grew up in the schoolyards of post-war Leningrad, playing rough and dreaming of ruling the world, became a public figure and his popularity soared. Russia and a captivated West were determined to see in him the progressive leader of their dreams, even as Putin, with ruthless efficiency, dismantled the country’s media, violently seized control and wealth from the thriving business class, and decimated the fragile mechanisms of democracy.

Within just a few years, essentially every obstacle to his unchecked dominance was removed and every opposing voice was silenced, with his political opponents and critics driven into exile or to their graves. As a journalist living in Moscow, the author experienced this story firsthand and for "The Man Without a Face" utilized information and sources that no other writer has exploited.

The account of how a "faceless" man maneuvered to attain absolute—and utterly corrupt—power possesses all the hallmarks of a classic prose narrative. "An extremely illuminating investigation, a brave book that dismantles the multitude of myths constructed in recent years... thrilling!" (The Guardian)