Sovok takes you on a front-row view of the transition from Soviet Union to liberated Russia, and her return back to today's tyranny. McKinney describes his interactions for over 20 years with dissidents, billionaires, mob bosses, presidents, bureaucrats, and political leaders, while he constantly breaks laws and bends rules, as do most of the people he works with. Sovok was described by one literary critic as "Jack Kerouac narrating the adventures of Thomas Pynchon's character, Tyrone Slothrop, only in Russia." For a less esoteric summary, a middle American went from washing dishes at a suburban Red Lobster to marrying a Soviet plutonium expert at the request of someone who was likely CIA. When US federal agencies threaten threaten him with prison sentences, the author proceeds to get embroiled in ever wilder escapades By declaring itself to be the story a liar, the author prods the listener to question everyone and everything. Through personal anecdotes, a central theme of Sovok is that a network of loyal and moral friends can, and did, circumvent the world's strictest government regulations, defeat criminal syndicates, and make a lot of money while having more fun than most poor suckers know is possible.
