Viewer's review: Operation Kronstadt
Dominica Roberts reviews Harry Ferguson's book about a British spy in Russia during the Russian Revolution
Operation Kronstadt
Harry Ferguson
ISBN-13: 978-0091796211
"Operation Kronstadt" by Harry Ferguson is a true story from the early days of MI6, when a British spy, by profession a concert pianist, Paul Dukes, was trapped in Russia in 1918 during the Russian revolution, and a young naval officer, Gus Agar was sent to rescue him. Agar became caught up in an extraordinary adventure, eventually attacking the best-defended naval target in Russia, Krondstadt, at the head of the Gulf of Finland. It is extraordinary to think how nearly the Russian Revolution might have ended differently, if quite small things had happened one way rather than another.
Harry Ferguson is the ex-MI6 officer who was in Spy, the BBC series teaching spying techniques to ordinary people. His book of the programme was good, as were his earlier books about fighting drug-smugglers, but this is in a different class. Scene after scene springs vividly to life, just asking to be made into a film, from the exciting beginning when the British embassy in Petrograd is under attack, to the nail-biting action in Finnish waters at the end, and the epilogue in London. There are so many exciting episodes, daring escapes and near-misses that the problem would be what to leave out. I long to see Timothy Dalton or Daniel Craig play the parts of both the very different heroes, with the action cutting back and forth between the two stories.
By Dominica Roberts, Berkshire
Other books I have read, or in fact re-read, recently are Sarah Caudwell's four whodunnits based in barristers' chambers, of which "Thus was Adonis murdered " is perhaps the most perfect, and Lawrence Bloch's Burglar series, of which it is difficult to decide which is the best, but "The Burglar who Painted like Mondrian" is particularly amusing even on a third or fourth reading.
