Phillip Knightley

The Socialist at Centre-Half

Comrade Jim: The Spy Who Played for Spartak

By

Fourth Estate 272pp £14.99 order from our bookshop

This charming book encompasses all those elements that help make a modern bestseller – espionage, treachery, class warfare, politics, celebrity, drink, nostalgia and … football.

Jim Riordan is Professor Emeritus in Russian Studies at the University of Surrey. He is also a novelist, a writer of children’s books, a translator, and a graduate of the Higher Party School in Moscow, where the Soviet authorities trained carefully selected Communists for their mission to take over the world.

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