Operation Kronstadt: The Greatest True Story of Honor, Espionage, and the Rescueof Britain'sGreatestSpy, The Man with a Hundred Faces Paperback - 2010

by Harry Ferguson

In May 1919, mere months after the guns of World War I had fallen silent, the Russian Revolution was roaring and the Bolsheviksď Red Army had begun to take the upper hand against the U.S. and British-backed White Army. Paul DukesÕa 30-year-old concert pianist, master of disguise dubbed ćThe Man with a Hundred Faces,Ć and the only English spy in RussiaÕwas cut off in Petrograd after infiltrating the Bolshevik Government and stealing top-secret information.

With the government in London desperately in need of the documents in Dukesď possession and the Bolshevik secret police closing in, a seemingly suicidal plan was hatched to rescue Dukes. 29-year-old naval lieutenant Gus Agar and his handpicked team of seven men boarded plywood boatsÕthe fastest naval vessels in existence, most armed with only two machine guns and a single torpedo. They set out for the island fortress of Kronstadt, the most well-defended naval target in Russian, and into the jaws of the Soviet police.

Written by a former MI6 officer in the tradition of Agent Zigzag, Operation Kronstadt is an extraordinarily gripping non-fiction thriller.