Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly [Hardcover]

Richard B. Spence (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2002

Master spy was the basis for the James Bond character.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sidney Reilly (born Salomon Rosenblum in Odessa in 1874), notorious in England as a probable Russian double agent, remains largely unfamiliar to Americans, though PBS aired the British miniseries Reilly, Ace of Spies in the early 1980s. Some consider Reilly a real-life James Bond, but his resume more closely resembles that of a Bond villain, or perhaps Sherlock Holmes's nemesis, Moriarty: a "diplomatic businessman," as one colleague described him, he crisscrossed the globe, brokering information and facilitating arms deals, always maintaining, as Spence, a professor of history at the University of Idaho, puts it, "a foot in all camps and access to the right people and information." Even his interest in Russia, especially after the 1917 revolution, may have stemmed from a desire to get in on the action should the country be opened up to foreign investment. Spence's biography covers a remarkable amount of territory, using newly released material in the British and Russian intelligence archives, but the dense narrative is frequently overwhelmed by the amount of detail. It becomes difficult to keep track of which alias Reilly is using at any given time, and the names of his colleagues blur together. In addition, Spence often relies on conjecture, about everything from Reilly's hypothetical involvement in several bombings in major American cities to the mysterious circumstances of his alleged capture and execution by the Soviets in 1925 (including persistent rumors placing him in Shanghai 13 years later). The historical aspects of the story are engrossing, but readers expecting a gripping espionage thriller will be let down by the scholarly tone and ambiguity.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

...exhaustive research...into his revealing story...(an) international stew of greed, double dealing and conflicts of interest... -- W. Adam Mandelbaum Esq., Association of Former Intelligence Officers

Fascinating...the real-life model for James Bond...(Reilly's) exploits often exceed anything the fictional...Bond of Hollywood ever did. -- Heather Frye, Lewiston Morning Tribune, 11/29/02

Reilly...has remarkable charm, but...spied both sequentially and simultaneously for Great Britain (and) Russia...often treacherous, always audacious. -- Woody West, Associate Editor, The Washington Times, 2/16/03

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Feral House (November 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0922915792
• ISBN-13: 978-0922915798
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #662,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Publisher's Response to Smear, April 14, 2005

By 

Adam Parfrey "Feral House Publisher" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly (Hardcover)

I wonder why a character who calls himself "Borwall" has attempted to discredit professor and author Richard Spence and his book and promote a competing book by one Mr. Cook.

From "Borwall's" comments I really have to wonder whether he actually read TRUST NO ONE himself. He definitely didn't read it very carefully because in the list of things cited as the author's cardinal errors and misinterpretations, he manages to misrepresent what is actually said.

For instance, author Richard Spence does not argue that Trust was a great Soviet achievement; exactly the opposite is the case. While Spence theorizes that elements in British intelligence sought to use Trotsky for their purposes, and vice versa, that's hardly the same as presenting him as a tool of capitalist restoration. Re Hill and Boyce's ambiguous loyalties, and the Radkevichs, Spence stands by his sources and conclusions. "Borwall" repeatedly tosses off phrases such as "absolute and complete lies" in attacking the author's views or "quite sure" in advancing his own, but in neither instance does he reference the slightest evidence to support these sweeping assertions. In the absence of a reasoned and factual rebuttal, he resorts to cheap shots of innuendo, ad hominem attack, and unsubstantiated claims of superior knowledge.

Finally, speaking of cheap smears, author Spence is not an agent of the KGB or its successors or, for that matter, a freemanson or tool of the Elders of Zion. Likewise, the folks at Sovershenno Sekretno would be very surprised to see themselves labeled a "KGB paper."

Adam Parfrey
Feral House

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MONUMENTAL EFFORT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, February 16, 2003

By 

W. ADAM MANDELBAUM (NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly (Hardcover)


The serious student of intelligence history will appreciate the exhaustive research that author
Spence put in to his revealing story of "The Ace of Spies," Sidney Reilly, (Born Salomon
Rosenblum, Poland).
A Professor of History at the University of Idaho, Spence has provided a density of detail that
one seldom encounters in an espionage biography. But, that density is a two edged sword. On
the one hand, the academically oriented will relish the microscopic facts from fantasy discussion
of Reilly's life and world. On the other hand, those seeking more drama and less detail may find
Trust No One, a rather slow going read.
Spence often conjectures where facts are absent, but his "maybe" and "perhaps" offerings add
to the mystery that was Sidney Reilly, without subtracting from the author's monumental efforts
at ferreting out the truth of the man who trusted no one.
In reading this new biography of an old spy, we see the world of finance, oil, espionage and
war is not very different today than it was in the early years of the last century-only the
technology has improved. The international stew of greed, double dealing and conflicts of interest
which made up the main course of Sidney Reilly's diet, is still being served up hot on today's
international menus.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterful unveiling of Reilly's "wilderness of mirrors", January 7, 2003

By 

Jerry Maizell (Winfield, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly (Hardcover)

Spence masterfully captures the romance of the Reilly legend while putting it in historical perspective.

James Jesus Angleton, the famed CIA chief of counter-intelligence, referred to the secret world as "a wilderness of mirrors." A historian who takes on the challenge of such mysteries must try to distinguish the subject from its reflections, without obscuring either.

Spence pits the dramatic and tangled tale of Reilly's devious persona against the background of the even more dramatic events that swirled around him. Even those unfamiliar with the history of Russian revolutionaries will be fascinated by the connections that Spence reveals for the 1st time, like that between triple-agent Evno Azef, his raven-haired sister Natta and the young Salomon Rosenblum who was to be reborn as Sidney Reilly.

Though the casual reader can safely ignore it, perhaps Spence's greatest contribution to Reillyana is his meticulous documentation, so that one is never in doubt about what is fact and what is speculation extrapolated from fact. Publishers Weekly's review misses the point in denigrating Spence's scholarly ambiguity. Only fools prefer neat but unjustified certainty to untidy but logical explication.

Spence goes behind Reilly's carefully built façade of "calm, elegant, immaculate" gentleman, art and book collector, businessman with a French mistress; and even further behind Reilly's current façade of "ace of spies," to involve the reader intensely in the gritty double and triple dealings that make Reilly so intriguing to those of us who live a cleaner, if less exciting life.

Whether you are a specialist, an espionage buff or just want to follow up on the TV show, you can trust "Trust No One" to be as riveting as it is enlightening.