Paul Dukes, a thirty-year-old concert pianist, was a master of disguise-dubbed 'The Man with a Hundred Faces'-and an English spy in Russia. As the First World War was drawing to a close, and as the revolutionaries sought to consolidate their newfound power, Dukes was 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 Dukes's possession, and the Bolshevik secret police closing in, a seemingly suicidal plan was hatched to rescue him.
Young naval lieutenant Gus Agar and his handpicked team of seven men boarded plywood boats-the 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 Russia-and into the jaws of the Soviet police.
Written by a former MI6 officer, Operation Kronstadt tells the full story, making for an extraordinarily gripping nonfiction thriller.
