Sailor, painter, doctor, lawyer, polyglot, and writer, Dmitri Bystrolyotov

(1901 75) led a life that might seem far-fetched for a spy novel, yet here

the truth is stranger than fiction. The result of a thirty-five-year journey

that started with a private meeting between the author and Bystrolyotov

in 1973 Moscow and continued through the author s subsequent

research in international archives, Stalin s Romeo Spy: The Remarkable

Rise and Fall of the KGB s Most Daring Operative pieces together a life lived

in the shadows of the twentieth century s biggest events.

One...