This is the first biography of Lothar Witzke, a German spy sentenced to death by the United States during WWI but later pardoned by President Calvin Coolidge. Witzke was convicted for the Black Tom munitions depot explosion in 1916 that killed four and crippled the Allies' resupply and arguably intensified the stalemate faced by the opposing armies of WWI. After his pardon Witzke lived in Latin America and China as a German expat, first joining the Abwehr and later the Nazi party. He ran espionage squads in Great Britain during WWII. After WWII Witzke became a nationalist politician and returned to Hamburg as a prominent businessman. He was killed in East Germany in 1962, presumably by a Stasi agent for suspected double agent work on behalf of the British. Paul Friedland and Robert Hornick trace Witzke's morally complicated life and probe his expansive trial, conviction, and pardon. In doing so they focus on whether Witzke was guilty of the Black Tom explosion and draw out for the reader how an infamous spy functioned in the interwar years and after.