Red Spy in Harbin (Book 1: In the Beginning, #1)

⭐️ 5 out of 5 stars
"The story was informative and entertaining. I got a good sense of what the Chinese Revolution was like from 1921 to 1937-desperate, brutal, and chaotic. I learned how a person became a top spy-and the level of intelligence, inventiveness, and desire they needed to possess. The suspense felt real."
- OnlineBookClub.org
In a city torn between revolution and empire, a Chinese spy walks the line between duty and survival. 1935, Harbin. Under Japanese occupation, the city festers with spies, racketeers, and would-be revolutionaries. Chinese agent Chen Minghe is ordered to infiltrate the Russian Fascist Party-led by Konstantin Rodzaevsky, a real-life White émigré whose vanity and erratic leadership belie his dangerous ambitions.
RSIH is more than a spy thriller-it charts the transformation of Chen, a gifted Hakka youth from Fujian, into one of the earliest deep-cover operatives of the Chinese Communist intelligence service. Haunted by the executions from the Nationalist purges of 1927, Chen is drawn into the underground world of Communist resistance. He comes under the influence of Zhou Enlai-already the Party's brilliant spymaster, whose strategic guidance shapes Chen's path as an agent.
Assigned to a Red Army communications unit, Chen's first mission involves racing pigeons and coded fireworks. These improvisational methods give way to formal training. He is transferred to SIGINT, intercepting and decoding military transmissions, before being selected for elite spycraft. He learns infiltration, psychological manipulation, and surveillance. Crucially, Chen is a secret Russian speaker-a rare asset for operations in Manchuria. His first major field assignment sends him to Harbin, a volatile frontier of occupation and intrigue. His target is Konstantin Rodzaevsky, the real-life leader of the All-Russian Fascist Party-an émigré movement based in Harbin with global aspirations. Chen engineers a false-flag assassination attempt. The ruse succeeds, and Rodzaevsky appoints him as his personal driver. Embedded deep within the fascist movement, Chen begins feeding intelligence back to the Party-and to Moscow.
Chen uncovers critical intelligence: illegal Japanese chemical and biological warfare experiments and-most significantly-plans to invade China, not the USSR. This revelation is forwarded to Moscow and helps relieve Stalin's fear of a Japanese assault on Soviet territory, reshaping his strategy on the eve of war.
Chen also intercepts signs of the 1936 kidnapping of Chiang Kai-shek that forces a fragile realignment between Communists and Nationalists. Rodzaevsky's rise is supported by Nakamura, a real historical figure involved in kidnapping, narcotics, and brothels. Acting as intermediary, he introduces him to the TK-Japan's military intelligence-and supplies covert funding and protection.
1937 dawns and full-scale war with Japan begins, Chen's mission starts to unravel. Rodzaevsky's affair with a planted mistress comes to light. The resulting scandal begins to unravel the operation.
Even the most disciplined agent is not immune to human cost. As ideology fractures and alliances shift, Chen's mission becomes a perilous balancing act: between political purpose and personal survival, between deception and belief.
Told through Chen's eyes-and through the perspectives of diplomats and security officials in 1920s Shanghai-RSIH explores the birth of modern Chinese espionage and the psychological toll of ideological loyalty. Blending historical fact with taut literary fiction, it reveals the covert wars that shaped East Asia in the lead-up to World War II.
Suitable for readers of Harris, Furst, and Le Carré
Set against the upheavals of early twentieth-century East Asia, RSIH is an emotionally charged novel of loyalty, betrayal, and survival in the shadows of empire. 95,000 Words

Mark Oulton is a world traveller and astute observer of international culture. Born in the UK, he was moved around the world as a child due to his father's work in education and overseas development. He spent his formative years in Syria, Kenya, Malawi, and Nepal, as well as being educated in the UK from the age of twelve. As an adult, he lived in the UK for many years, working for the largest private company in the world and then as a company director in Bristol, UK, in agriculture and related trading and marketing. He then worked in the US for seven years before finally settling in China in 2015. He speaks French, passable Mandarin Chinese, and several other languages poorly. His most recent work as Global Market Research Manager for a leading Swiss corporation took him to every corner of the globe. He also writes about topical issues such as sustainability in agriculture, as well as the plastics and aluminium industries.
When not writing, his hobbies include cooking, painting, cycling, and gardening.