Lenin's Roller Coaster

Jack McColl is in Egypt working for His Majesty while his American lover, Caitlin Hanley is working as a reporter in revolutionary Russia.  Barely back together for a day in Scotland and the pair find out that the Bolshevik revolution has occurred in Russia.  Caitlin immediately heads off for Petrograd.  Returning to London, McColl finds himself tasked with causing mayhem in the Middle East to prevent supplies from getting through to the Germans.  But he has to wait a considerable length of time before heading out.

In Petrograd, Caitlin is impressed by what the Bolsheviks have done in ten short days.  But by December conditions had gotten worse.  The Cheka was established to stop attempts to disrupt the revolution.  Caitlin is told by her editor to either Coke home or resign.  She is reluctant to leave, but a Bolshevik friend tells her to go home and become a voice there for the revolution..

McColl is joined by Audrey Cheselden and the pair head off from Baghdad for Meshed; a trip that took a month.  Unfortunately while McColl was out trying to negotiate with members of the local soviet, in Ashkhabad, Cheselden's throat was slashed.  McColl needs to get out of there.  How will he manage to do that?  Fortunately there are those who are willing to help.

Having returned to the USA, Caitlin is shocked at how perceptions have changed since the country entered the war.  She is disillusioned, so decides to return to Russia via Vladivostok.  She travels on the Trans-Siberian Railway.  The trip is interrupted many times for a variety of reasons.  When she hears that the czar and his family is held in Yekaterinburg she decides to take a side trip there only to find herself detained by the Cheka.

McColl's trek is also westward.  In Sevastopol he learns that he is to head to Kiev.  There his plans to commit sabotage go awry and he has to leave suddenly for Moscow.  However on his way there he is captured by the Germans.

Will either McColl or Caitlin make it to Moscow, or have their respective journeys come to an end?  Author David Downing's thriller is full of action and portrays Russia as it was in the early months of the Bolshevik revolution, and the terror that would ensue.  A gripping read, and hard to put down.