To Kill Our Worthy Comrade

The usual Cold War novel has a James Bond style Western agent pitted against the KGB. “To Kill Our Worthy Comrade” is a very different novel. Most of the action takes place in the USSR, but the novel depicts the rivalries that existed at the heart of Soviet power, as the Brezhnev era draws to a close in the early eighties.

We encounter a young air defence force officer who meets a pretty girl at a dance and then finds she is the daughter of his commanding officer.

Admiral Mikhail Petrov, a distinguished submariner takes command of the Black Sea Fleet and must soon deal with an unexploded aerial mine from the war. In Moscow we meet senior KGB officers and discover that senior KGB and military officers are planning to oust Leonid Brezhnev as General Secretary of the Communist Party.

19-year old Lidiya, an idealistic young volunteer has completed her training in Leningrad and makes the journey to Sevastopol where she will work as a radio operator. In the past Lidiya has wandered through life without having to face reality, but life at fleet headquarters will bring a rude awakening.

Chance puts KGB General Georgi Ivanov, a much decorated war hero, on to the plotters, but the plotters have compromised KGB communications and much of Ivanov’s force is wiped out. In desperation he turns to the crack “Black Death” Naval Infantry under the command of Admiral Petrov.

As land sea and air action erupts in the Crimea and as a defector tries to escape to Turkey, NATO wonders if this is a move against its weak southern flank. As the world trembles on the brink of war, Petrov relays his orders to the fleet through the teenage radio operator, with whom he has just started an affair.

Plenty of twists, dramatic land sea and air action, a threat to world peace, and the love affairs within Colonel Romanov’s crack PVO Air Defence Force Regiment, which is test flying the new MiG-31, paint a vivid portrait of the Soviet Union at the start of the eighties.

Robert Hendry, the author of “To Kill Our Worthy Comrade” studied the USSR for over 25 years, is married to a Russian girl and has first hand knowledge of most of the key locations in this novel. He has seen live firings of Soviet missiles as depicted in this book, and has stood within feet of Soviet Naval infantry and Spetsnaz frogmen during training missions.

Few Western authors have first hand experience of Soviet mine clearance methods. Robert was present when a German Aerial mine was removed from the fleet anchorage at Sevastopol. Descriptions of the underground Project 825 submarine pens at Balaklava, which sound like something out of a Bond movie, are from personal knowledge.

“To Kill Our Worthy Comrade” introduces the lovely Lidiya, who arrives at Fleet headquarters and is pitch forked from the Admiral’s bed to a peace-threatening crisis that will change her life forever. Called their little dreamer by her parents because of her obsession with folk tales, Lidiya is naïve, irresponsible and irresistible. She is a most unlikely heroine in a cold war novel.

Author Robert Hendry says, “Lidiya was a minor character when she first appeared, but she won Admiral Petrov’s heart and mine as well, and took over the story. She really is a most troublesome girl, as she should do what I tell her, as I am the author. Lidiya doesn’t see things in that way and wanders from one problem to the next in her own inimitable way.”