{"product_id":"9780715640852","title":"Stalin's Romeo Spy: The Remarkable Rise and Fall of the KGB's Most Daring Operative","description":"\u003cp\u003eSailor, painter, doctor, lawyer, polyglot, and writer, Dmitri Bystrolyotov\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e(1901–75) led a life that might seem far-fetched for a spy novel, yet here\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe truth is stranger than fiction. The result of a thirty-five-year journey\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethat started with a private meeting between the author and Bystrolyotov\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ein 1973 Moscow and continued through the author’s subsequent\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eresearch in international archives, Stalin’s Romeo Spy: The Remarkable\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRise and Fall of the KGB’s Most Daring Operative pieces together a life lived\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ein the shadows of the twentieth century’s biggest events.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of the “Great Illegals,” a team of outstanding Soviet spies operating\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ein Western countries between the world wars, Bystrolyotov was\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe response to Sidney Reilly, the British prototype for James Bond.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA dashing man, his modus operandi was the seduction of women—\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eamong them a French embassy employee, a German countess, the wife\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eof a British official, and a Gestapo officer—which enabled Stalin to look\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003einto diplomatic pouches of many European countries. Risking his life,\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBystrolyotov also stole military secrets from Nazi Germany and Fascist\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eItaly. A man of extraordinary physical courage, he twice crossed the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSahara Desert and the jungles of Congo.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut his success as a spy didn’t save him from Stalin’s purges, at the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eheight of which he was arrested and tortured until he falsely confessed\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eto selling out to the enemy. Sentenced to twenty years of hard labor in\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe Gulag, Bystrolyotov risked more severe punishment by documenting\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe regime’s crimes against humanity in unpublished and suppressed\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ememoirs that rival those of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe first full-length biography in any language, at once a real-life\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003espy thriller, a drama of desire, and a prison memoir, Stalin’s Romeo Spy\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eis the true account of a flawed yet extraordinary man.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Duckworth Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47025111597296,"sku":"9780715640852","price":45.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780715640852_p0.jpg?v=1763624503","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780715640852","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}