The Forgotten Spy: The Untold Story of Stalin's First British Mole

'The Kensington police are trying to discover the identity of a man, aged about 35, who was found dead in a gas-filled kitchen at a house in Pembroke Gardens, Kensington. Apart from a table, there was no furniture in the house, but in a cupboard were a number of suits of clothes, including evening dress...' In this remarkable tale about an unremarkable man, Nick Barratt delves into the murky waters of the British and Soviet secret services of the 1920s and 1930s, to reveal the shocking story of his great uncle Ernest Holloway Oldham - known as ARNO to his Russian 'handlers'. After serving in the British army during World War One, Ernest Holloway Oldham was drafted into the Communications Department of the British Foreign Office, where he was charged with ensuring the security of encrypted messages to embassies and consulates around the world. Over the course of the next decade or so, Ernest was drawn ever deeper into the underworld of pre-Cold War espionage towards a double-life that became the darkest of secrets. Enigmatic, gripping and entertaining, Nick Barratt takes the reader on a journey through post-First World War Europe into the shadows where agents, special agents and double agents lurked, during a period of history when everyone had something to hide.