The author of The Complete Jack the Ripper, has drawn upon documentary and eye witness material to give an account of the Edwardian East End which was the refuge of political exiles who had fled the Tsars and the savage reprisals after the 1905 uprisings. In January 1909 an attempted wage snatch led to what became known as The Tottenham Outrage. Approximately two years later, the gang, in escaping an attempted robbery of a jeweller in Houndsditch killed three policemen and crippled two more for life. They were eventually found in Sidney Street where the famous siege of Sidney Street began. As the story unfolds, the figure emerges of the man who killed three English policemen but who lived to become a hero of the October Revolution and head of the Soviet Cheka.