International journalist and author Anne Applebaum has been placed under police guard after the engine of her car mysteriously exploded, the Times UK is reporting. But speculation about the motive is where the story spices up. Applebaum is not only the author of Gulag: A History, but she is also married to a Polish diplomat and ex-journalist, Radoslaw Sikorski, who, like his wife, has been critical in his writings of the Russian government, especially the Kremlin.

In an online column yesterday on the Washington Post‘s opinion blog, Anne Applebaum voiced her disagreement with the “outrageous arrest of Roman Polanski,” arguing that to put Polanski on trial or to jail him “does not serve society in general or his victim in particular.” But Applebaum failed to reveal that she’s married to a Polish foreign minister who is fighting for Polanski’s release.