Books like Bootleg by Karen Blumenthal

A biography of Oleg Gordievsky, the Soviet double‑agent who, while working undercover in the KGB, supplied MI6 with critical intelligence that accelerated the collapse of the Cold War.

Hidden Figures tells the true story of four African‑American mathematicians—Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Christine Darden—who broke barriers at NASA’s Langley Research Center, proving that talent, not race or gender, powers scientific progress.

Explores the evolution of racist and antiracist ideas in America, tracing their European origins to contemporary society.

The true story of the greatest codebreaking duo that ever lived, an American woman and her husband who invented the modern science of cryptology together and used it to confront the evils of their time, solving puzzles that unmasked Nazi spies and helped win World War II.

During the Prohibition Era, the most famous brands of bootleg booze sent drinkers to the graveyard instead of back for more. Templeton rye whiskey was a rare exception. This is the true story of that beverage and its makers. The drink originated in Templeton, Carroll County, Iowa, shortly after the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1920. The original maker just wanted something that tasted good without costing a fortune. Over the next years, Joe Erlbeck built the making and distribution into a bootlegging empire despite the efforts of his nemesis, Federal Agent Benjamin Franklin Wilson. This book tells a mixed story. Whiskey was flat out illegal. Yet the rent Joe Erlbeck paid to set up a still would pay the interest on the morgage and maybe stretch to shoes for the kids. The danger from the revenuers was the price a farmer paid to squeek by one more year. Despite an admitted bias toward the bootleggers' side, the book both seems well researched and is a good yarn.