John Sweeney has pissed off Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, the Church of Scientology and the government of North Korea. An old school reporter, he worked at the London Observer, then the BBC. He's written 12 books, including four novels, the 200,000-copy bestseller ELEPHANT MOON, set in WW2 Burma, two modern-day political thrillers, COLD and ROAD, and his latest, about fake news in Stalin's Moscow in 1933, THE USEFUL IDIOT. He tweets from @johnsweeneyroar.

Michael Weiss is no John Sweeney, so let's just get that out of the way. He's a former CNN investigative reporter and the current editor-at-large of The Daily Beast. He's written (ok, co-written) one book, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, which was a New York Times bestseller as well as a satirical TV series (unmade) about a Russian oligarch who is asked to swing a U.S. election but tries his hardest not to. Michael is currently at work on his second book, a history of Russia's military spy agency, which he must have pissed off at some point because it tried to hack him. He lives in New York and tweets from @michaeldweiss.

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