Customer Reviews

Reilly: Ace of Spies

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Behold one of the true forces shaping the balance of power of the early 1900's. You will not find this in your history books. Enter into the fascinating, mysterious world of Sidney Reilly, the number one field agent in the British secret service and the man who was the real life model for Ian Flemming's James Bond character. His was the world of passion for power, high intrigue and brutally daring exploits that must have insipred the writers of the "Mission Impossible" television series. Witness perhaps the greatest British folly of all in backstabbing their own man who was poised to spare the world the brutal insanity of Lenin and Stalin. Then read how he brought down Russia's "the Trust", the most devious intelligence organization ever devised.

Reilly, Ace of Spies is by R.B. Lockhart who claims to have met the great English spy as a child. His father, Bruce Lockhart was intimately involved in some of the major missions carried out by Reilly. This is a good book for those wanting factual information on Reilly and the author has restricted himself to telling only anecdotes which can be backed up by facts. Nevertheless, some of Reilly's greatest missions are skipped over because they could not be confirmed (such as his work behind German lines in WWI). This is a pity as his "greatest mission" - as claimed by the book - is his failed mission to overthrow the Bolshelviks in 1918. Still, one can't quibble. It's a pity that a new version has not been released - one written post-Soviet Union and where the GPU and KGB files were available - so that the mystery surrounding Reilly's death may have been cleared up. Still a very good book and one that certainly wets the appetite to read more about Reilly.

Ian Fleming wrote the James Bond books based on Sidney Reilly's exploits. Reilly was the first and most successful secret agent in pretending to be someone else. This enabled Britain to know how to get Arab oil and defeat Germany in WWI at sea. Reilly's adventures in Russia were fascinating to me. The TV series speculated on his torture and death at the hands of Felix Dzerzhinsky and Stalin. When I was in Moscow I asked someone with KGB connections if they could tell me what happened. The answer was that they were very familiar with Reilly but would not discuss the details. That alone ought to make you want to read the book.

I came to this book after watching the TV series. There's much more to find out about this spy, who has much of Rouletabille as a character.

AN EXCITING STORY OF A VIRTUALLY UNKNOWN SPY-GENIU