Overview

Part Blackhawk Down, part The Riddle of the Sands, this is an extraordinarily gripping non-fiction thriller, written by a former MI6 officer. Operation Kronstadt not only reveals the early days of Britain's intelligence services but uncovers a truly dramatic story from the Russian Revolution involving a daring rescue attempt and a 'mission impossible' against the best defended naval target in Russia. By May 1919, when the power struggle between former Tsarists and Bolsheviks hangs in the balance, the only British agent in Russia is trapped and in mortal danger. Mansfield Cumming, the first 'C', dreams up an audacious - probably suicidal - plan to rescue him, and a young naval officer is sent with a specially selected team into the jaws of the Soviet fleet. This is the remarkable story of the spy, Paul Dukes, (the only MI6 officer to be knighted for work in the field), and of Gus Agar, whose extraordinary escapade won him the Victoria Cross.

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9780099514657

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Reviews

A fascinating, minutely researched and ground breaking new book ... which turns out to be a tale of adventure, honour and raw courage quite as exciting as anything found in fiction or on the silver screen Daily Mail Ferguson's account of both sets of operations is exciting and his enthusiasm is infectious Sunday Telegraph This is an excellent book and thoroughly recommended Journal of the Victoria Cross Society Excellent, entertaining and informative ... It is genuinely hard to put down Navy News

A fascinating, minutely researched and ground breaking new book ... which turns out to be a tale of adventure, honour and raw courage quite as exciting as anything found in fiction or on the silver screen -- Andrew Roberts * Daily Mail * Ferguson's account of both sets of operations is exciting and his enthusiasm is infectious -- Alan Judd * Sunday Telegraph * This is an excellent book and thoroughly recommended * Journal of the Victoria Cross Society * Excellent, entertaining and informative ... It is genuinely hard to put down * Navy News * Good, pacy stuff and impressively researched -- Professor Keith Jeffery, official historian of MI6

A sometimes sluggish recitation of a thrilling episode at the dawn of the Bolshevik era.Former MI6 operative Ferguson ventures that the findings of British spies in Russia during the civil-war era should have encouraged intervention to bring down the vulnerable Communist regime, which would have spared the West a great deal of trouble in the decades to come. But much of the action he recounts here was characterized by bad guesses, misinterpretations and crossed signals, for which Ferguson lays much blame at the door of early spymaster Mansfield Cumming ( the myth that he was an intelligence mastermind persists to this day ). In the contested theater of operations around Petrograd, a British agent named Paul Dukes had been caught in the Bolshevik lines, bearing sensitive documents. The only way to get him out, the stalwarts of the Royal Navy concluded, was to mount a daring raid. Ferguson's novelistic touches in setting the scene are heavy-handed - At long last, the grey-haired officer removed his spectacles and slipped a gold rimmed monocle into his right eye - and his efforts at rendering dialogue are clumsy. The narrative gathers steam as the author follows the resourceful commandos and their attack on the heavily armed Soviet fleet at Kronstadt with a flotilla of plywood boats. It remains for the interested reader to learn the outcome of the attack. Suffice it to say that things did not go exactly as planned, but there were plenty of fireworks and cliffhangers - even though the Soviet regime survived both the attack and the civil war.A somewhat useful documentation, but a shorter, tighter tale would have been welcome. (Kirkus Reviews)

A fascinating, minutely researched and ground breaking new book ... which turns out to be a tale of adventure, honour and raw courage quite as exciting as anything found in fiction or on the silver screen -- Andrew Roberts Daily Mail Ferguson's account of both sets of operations is exciting and his enthusiasm is infectious -- Alan Judd Sunday Telegraph This is an excellent book and thoroughly recommended Journal of the Victoria Cross Society Excellent, entertaining and informative ... It is genuinely hard to put down Navy News Good, pacy stuff and impressively researched -- Professor Keith Jeffery, Official Historian Of Mi6

Author Information

Harry Ferguson is a former MI6 officer and an undercover agent for the National Investigation Service (NIS). He has written two books about his experiences with the NIS- Kilo 17 (2003) and Lima 3 (2005). In 2005, he starred alongside Mike Baker of the CIA in the BBC2/3 series Spy and he also wrote the book of the series- Spy - A Handbook.

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