Red Dusk and the Morrow

Sir Paul Dukes is often called the only British agent knighted for espionage, and this memoir tells how he earned the honor. Slipping in and out of Bolshevik Russia in disguise during the chaos that followed the 1917 revolution, he gathered intelligence for the Secret Intelligence Service while dodging the Cheka’s dragnet. He recounts forged papers, safe houses, narrow escapes, and the daily dread of a country tearing itself apart. Published in 1922, the book is both a gripping spy adventure and a firsthand record of Petrograd under early Soviet rule, when hunger and suspicion ruled the streets. Dukes writes with the eye of a man who lived his cover completely. Free to read as a PDF and EPUB edition.