The Scientist and the Spy

About the book

The Scientist and the Spy by Mara Hvistendahl is a crime and mystery novel for adult readers.

A riveting true story of industrial espionage in which a Chinese-born scientist is pursued by the U. S. government for trying to steal trade secrets, by a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. In September 2011, sheriff's deputies in Iowa encountered three ethnic Chinese men near a field where a farmer was growing corn seed under contract with Monsanto. What began as a simple trespassing inquiry mushroomed into a two-year FBI operation in which investigators bugged the men's rental cars, used a warrant intended for foreign terrorists and spies, and flew surveillance planes over corn country-all in the name of protecting trade secrets of corporate giants Monsanto and Du Pont Pioneer.

In The Scientist and the Spy, Hvistendahl gives a gripping account of this unusually far-reaching investigation, which pitted a veteran FBI special agent against Florida resident Robert Mo, who after his academic career foundered took a questionable job with the Chinese agricultural company DBN-and became a pawn in a global rivalry. But a decade of efforts to stem the problem have been largely ineffective.

Delivery & pickup: Available from Whimsy and Wonder with New Zealand delivery or Christchurch pickup.