RUSSIAN HAZARD By Dorian Blair and C. H. Dand
Russian Hazard (Robert Hale,' 'us.) might be classed as- ." just another of those Secret Service yarns," but it has one or two redeeming features. Mr. Blair, whose mother was Russian, shows an unusual understanding . of the com- plexities of the RuSsian character. From the 'torrent of astonishing personal adventures, which he relates in a naive and somewhat aggravating style, one gathers many interesting impressions of Russian history from 1914 to 1922. The paralysing inefficiency and cor- ruption in high places- of the Tsarist regime, the pathetic Utopianism of the Kerensky republic, and the extrava- gancies and cruelties of the early Bol- shevik rule, are 'resi-ealed 'through the eyes of an impressionable young man who was both actor and observer of the historic- events described. :Unlike most Secret Service agents, Mr. Blair is able to appreciate the good points of the Bolsheviks, in spite of imprisonment and torture at their bands. Many of his adventUreS, rangink'from the burning of corpse to his escape in a' ship's refrigerdtor, are worthy of Williant Le -Queux, but in - Russia such things : could happen: • ,Against any other back-
. ground- they • would read like - sheer- romanticising.
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