I'm about halfway through Dogs of War by Frederick Forsyth (author of Day of the Jackal). It's flat out fascinating - a complete manual of how to overthrow a small African dictatorship, going into insane levels of detail over every facet of such an operation. For research the author met with mercenaries and arms dealers, posing as an interested party in throwing a coup of New Guinea. The balls on this guy.
There's a movie with Christopher Walken that's also pretty good, though it's less interested in the actual mechanics of throwing a coup.
I just started Reflections of a Russian Statesman by Konstantin Pobedonostsev. It's touted as an excellent critique of liberalism.
Interesting. Went immediately on the list and I picked up the epub from Archive.org. What gravitated you to that?
I was looking for an antebellum defense of the Tsars to evaluate the state of Russian political theory from which Lenin arose.
Russian history has sort of perpetually floated in that "I'll get around to it later" spot for me. If you come across any really compelling nuggets lemme know.