BOOKS IN BRIEF
The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage
MARA HVISTENDAHL, RIVERHEAD BOOKS, 336 PP., $28, FEBRUARY 2020
IN SEPTEMBER 2011, years before U.S. President Donald Trump pushed the United States into a trade war with China, Iowa state police caught three men trespassing near a cornfield under contract with the agrochemical giant Monsanto. The encounter caught the attention of the FBI and led it to the Chinese-born engineer Robert Mo, who became a suspect in the industrial espionage investigation that is the focus of the journalist Mara Hvistendahl’s new book, The Scientist and the Spy—a nuanced look at some of the pawns in the U.S.-China rivalry.
The FBI suspected Mo and his associates at the Beijing-based agricultural company DBN of a plot to smuggle genetically modified corn seeds—closely guarded trade secrets—to China. Through her reporting in China and the United States, Hvistendahl recounts the case with the vivid details and pace of a spy thriller.
