In The Scientist and The Spy, Mara Hvistendahl recounts the story of how Robert Mo, a Chinese national with two PhDs and a home in Florida, got into trouble with the FBI. Hoping to find a way to earn more income for his young family, Mr Mo takes a job with DBN, a powerhouse seed producer based in Beijing. Before long, he finds himself conducting recon missions in the cornfields of Iowa. The Economist says her compelling account reads "in part like a spy thriller, replete with car chases, phone-tapping and aerial surveillance as agents track the shovel-carrying suspects across America." The larger question Ms Hvistendahl raises: When does economic espionage and intellectual property theft become a matter of national security? And what to do about it?