Marina Litvinenko’s husband, Alexander (Sasha) Litvinenko, was poisoned to death with a radioactive substance called polonium 210 in London in November of 2006. After his murder, as she told an audience at the Brooklyn Public Library recently, “I wanted to know who killed my husband.” She was speaking to the crowd via Skype, so the view of her on the screen at the front of the auditorium was from desk level. It showed a slim, red-haired woman in a brown jacket with a Nehru collar in front of a bookshelf in an apartment. At first, her eyelids kept almost closing; it was 7:45 p.m. in Brooklyn, 12:45 a.m. in London.
Mrs. Litvinenko had just accomplished something that no one in power had encouraged her to do. Her husband, a former agent…
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The New Yorker (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 7, 2016