COMING HOME, by Brittney Griner with Michelle BurfordIf you weren’t following women’s basketball, you probably hadn’t heard of Brittney Griner when she was arrested at a Moscow-area airport in February 2022. “Fear is one thing,” Griner writes in “Coming Home,” her new memoir, describing the stomach-curdling moment when an inspector seized her passport and told her to wait. “But uncertainty, the unknown, a free fall into mystery — that’s much stronger than fear; it’s terror.”At first, Griner naïvely thought she would be fined and sentenced to house arrest. But possession of even a small amount of drugs is a serious offense in Russia, and she was eventually charged with narcotics smuggling. Days later, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Griner found herself a high-profile pawn in a vicious geopolitical battle.

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Persons: Brittney Griner, Michelle Burford, Brittney, —, Griner, ” Organizations: Phoenix Mercury, UMMC, Mercury Locations: Moscow, UMMC Yekaterinburg, Russian, United States, Russia, Ukraine