Troika

by Clive Egleton

This is the story of a power struggle within the KGB that takes place at the end of October 1982 between the intelligence service and its military counterpart centring round a daring plot to overthrow the hierarchy and install the hawkish Yuri Andropov as supreme commander.
Clive Egleton is author of fourteen previous novels including "The October Plot", "Seven Days to a Killing", "The Russian Enigma" and "Picture of the Year".

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Clive (Frederick William) Egleton was a British author of spy novels.

He enlisted in the Royal Armoured Corps in 1945 to train as a tank driver while still underage. He was subsequently commissioned into the South Staffordshire Regiment for whom he served in India, Hong Kong, Germany, Egypt, Cyprus, The Persian Gulf and East Africa. He retired in 1975 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

His novel Seven Days to a Killing was filmed as The Black Windmill, starring Michael Caine. Escape to Athena is a novelization of the 1979 movie of the same name.

Reviews

[Spencer Willardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up for free on the "take me" pile at the local library. I was surprised at how much of the dynamics of the Russian (Soviet) security services was revealed in this book. It was interesting to think of the counterfactual history and imagined machinations of the different security services at the time that Brezhnev was dying. The plot got a bit convoluted toward the middle, but overall the book was an interesting and fun read. A really good fiction book for those interested in intelligence, tradecraft, and the late Soviet period.