Pilgrim Spy: My secret war against Putin, the KGB and the Stasi

by Tom Shore

This is one of the great untold stories of the twentieth century.

It is a first-hand account of a mission by an SAS soldier sent behind the Iron Curtain by MI6 to find someone who didn't necessarily want to be found and how, on a follow-up mission, he found himself manoeuvring against a mysterious KGB officer - one Major Vladimir Putin and a murder plot by Kremlin hardliners. If the plot had succeeded, it would have given the Russians the excuse they were looking for to roll out the tanks across East Germany, the Berlin Wall would not have fallen - and the map of Europe would look very different today.

It tells of roof top chases, the interrogation of terrorists to gain vital information, a beautiful, East German female (who he suspected of being a Stasi spy), betrayal by people he trusted, an escape through forests pursued by enemy agents and ending in a climactic gun battle at Colditz castle, formerly used by the Soviets as a psychiatric hospital to detain dissidents.

In James Bond novels, it is MI6 operators who carry out this type of work, but in reality, when facing a committed foe in an isolated and deadly environment, the intelligence agencies call upon members of the British Special Forces. This is the first insider account of how UK operators working undercover, do what needs to be done in order to protect the UK's interests abroad - revealing their hidden hand in world events.

Genres: Espionage, Russia

389 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 6, 2018

Reviews

[Lottie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is it true or not, maybe not.

[Tobias · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was poor. Poorly written, poorly executed, poorly delivered. If it was ghostwritten, the writer should give their money back; if not, the editor needs to be sacked. Setting aside whether it was "true", or a (heavily) fictionalised account of someone else's actions, the writing is weak. What could have been (and probably was) an interesting story is told as if it's separate acts in a made-for-TV series, where the writer feels compelled to remind us every second page of something important he's just told us, in case we forget it having read it all of five minutes previously.

I persevered because I had been given it as a gift, and I had specifically asked for it (so it would be rude not to have read it), but other than some slightly interesting historical interludes it really was not very good. Read it if you're 13 and can't be bothered to read Bravo Two Zero.

[Greg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fabricated fantastical nonsense. Clearly fiction. Rubbish.

[Frank · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a fictional story. I am (East) German, I have lived in East Germany until the fall of the wall and I don‘t even recognise my former homeland in which the author is allegedly have carried out his ludicrous mission. I can‘t list all the things that are so blatantly wrong in this book but here are some: for a start the author can‘t even get the name of the East German‘s ruling party right, then he claims that Russian soldiers checked passengers‘ passports at Prague‘s airport (the Czechs had their own border troops), East German sport training facilities were secured with barbed wire and apparently guarded by East German border troops carrying machine guns (what?), the dissident organisation he joined apparently called themselves Bewegung (that word on its own - movement - does not even make sense), they regularly meet in Gästehäuser (pubs, I assume — though no German calls a pub a Gästehaus), the Russian KGB operates openly in East Germany and instructs the police directly as „witnessed“ by the author (policemen would not take orders from KGB people. The KGB could get all information it wanted from the Stasi), anyone who opposed the system could get shot (the death penalty was abolished), Stasi members wore leather coats (what, just to stand out from the crowd and make them easy to spot?), making telephone calls to the West involved applying for a call at a police station and during a call a police man would sit opposite you with the finger at a button that would terminate the call if you said something he did not like (huh? All calls were monitored secretly by the Stasi. From major cities you could direct dial Western countries, from smaller towns you had to put a request through a post office), secret service member drove black cars (black was the one colour East German cars did not come in), according to the author were are a lot of empty factories and flats where he could hide (East Germany was short of housing, unless something was literally falling apart it would be occupied and that applied to factories too) etc etc etc. But then things get really out if hand with the story: Russian soldiers get killed by dissidents for their guns, almost everyone the author encounters carries a gun, he kills Germans that not only work for the Stasi but also the RAF (what? — yes, ex-RAF members settled in East Germany with new identities but they were still monitored by the Stasi) the KGB wants to kill Gorbatchev who is visiting East Germany to get East Germany back (never mind the fact that East Germany‘s leaders were disposed because they were too pro Russian) there were nationwide curfews where ppl could not leave in the evening or they would get shot (I lived in East Germany back then, why didn‘t anyone tell me or my friends who went out clubbing almost every night back then?) and so on and on and on. If you want a true account of life in EastGermany then read „Beyond the Wall“, „After the Wall - Confessions from an East German Childhood“ or „The Iron Curtain Kid“

[Timothy James · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not well written. An interesting time in history for the setting (East Germany in the 80s) but reads like James Bond writing his autobiography.

Other reviewers have questioned the 'facts' as presented here.

[R DE LISLE · Rating 4 out of 5]

Believable tale of post-war spying on the Soviets by British secret services with twists.
Readable without reaching literary heights.

[Jeniston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure if the story true or not but entertaining for sure

[Naguib · Rating 2 out of 5]

Redundant, many unnecessary details, sense of ego. The whole story could be described in one chapter.

[Paul Cooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

You are never quite sure...is this real, or a novel?

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure about this, as a novel a good read.

[A. Yeoman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of controversy around this book, but a good thriller regardless of whether fact or fiction.

[Maddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great story and detail about an interesting time in history. But I couldn't fathom whether it was fact or fiction. I wished it had been one or the other. But who knows? Maybe fact, as publicised.

[Oliver Fensom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felt like I was forever questioning if the book was fact or fiction. A good read regardless.