Christopher Steele memoir published by Mariner Books

At Christopher Steele’s home in England, they have a running joke.

It has to do with the epitaph for his gravestone. His wife says it should read: “A failed spy afraid of being sued,” Steele told me in a recent interview in advance of the publication of his book, “Unredacted: Russia, Trump, and the Fight for Democracy.”

The phrase is borrowed from Steele’s nemesis, Donald Trump, who was the subject of the former British intelligence officer’s famous — or infamous, depending on where you sit — dossier alleging that the Russians were interfering in the 2016 presidential election on Trump’s behalf, had contact with Trump’s campaign and may have scandalous material that could be used to manipulate him.

Steele tried mightily, and with only minimal success, to get the news media to chase leads from the dossier, which he surreptitiously fed to select reporters in hopes they would publish blockbusters before the 2016 presidential election. The dossier was eventually leaked — Steele says without his permission — to BuzzFeed News, which published it in January 2017, shortly before Trump took office after defeating former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.