After an overdose of fiction it is refreshing to get back to extraordinary events that actually happened albeit in another time and place. The author is a lieutenant colonel in the Indian Army. In 1919 he is sent from Kashmir via Giligit over the Pamirs to Tashkent in Turkistan, now controlled by the Bolsheviks (Russian communists). To get there he crosses mountain passes at 13,000 feet where he takes the opportunity to add to his butterfly collection. The purpose of the mission to Tashkent, or its outcome, is unclear. Perhaps it was still secret at the time the book was first written in 1946. It becomes apparent that the Bolshevik authorities wish to capture the author. The author takes certain steps to evade capture. In that environment just after the Russian Revolution there was no such thing as a fair trial. Capture usually meant being shot. To evade capture, the author disguised himself as an Austrian prisoner of war of Rumanian nationality. Although he seems to have been something of a linguist, he could not speak a word of the Rumanian language and therefore had to take extra care not to meet any Rumanians who would quickly jump to the conclusion that he was not who he said he was. Other measures included lodging with a different family each night. He seems to have made friends easily with the local Russian residents and he acknowledges that they took very great risks in harbouring him. He says that the Bolsheviks spent 3 months keeping the author’s dog under surveillance in case he should lead them to his master. At one point the author leaves Tashkent for the safety of the surrounding mountain is the depths of winter. Here the author had an accident and injures his leg with the result that he is stranded on the mountainside for several months. On his return to Tashkent he discovers that the Bolshevik authorities are trying to recruit a spy for counter espionage activities in Bokhara, a city not under Bolshevik control. The Bolsheviks have lost all 15 of their previous spies. None of them returned. The author gets the job. He also gets clearances with the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. Life under the Bolsheviks was very difficult. People could not move around freely. They were required to have a permit to move from place to place. In the initial days of the Communist regime the principles of the ideology were rigidly enforced. Only when they were found to be unworkable were they gradually relaxed. A person with less than 5,000 roubles was allowed to keep his money, but a person with more than 5,000 roubles must be bourgeois and had the lot confiscated. It is ironic that the Nicholai currency of the deposed Tsarist regime had a better exchange value than the new currency of the Bolshevik regime. In spite of the author having been given up for dead he manages to escape to Persia after crossing several hundred miles of desert surviving hunger, thirst and the Bolsheviks. The story is not the easiest to read and is confused by the foreign names of people and places. It is made even more confusing because we never really know what the author set out to achieve and whether the mission to Bokhara served this purpose or was merely part of an elaborate escape plan.