The world press made Reilly into a household name within five years of his execution by Soviet agents in 1925, lauding him as a peerless spy and recounting his many espionage adventures. Newspapers dubbed him "the greatest spy in history" and "the Scarlet Pimpernel of Red Russia". The London "Evening Standard" described his exploits in an illustrated serial in May 1931 headlined "Master Spy". Ian Fleming used him as a model for James Bond in his novels (set in the early Cold War). Reilly is considered to be "the dominating figure in the mythology of modern British espionage".