THE TRUE NAME OF GOD

A bank robbery masks an act of computer sabotage that topples Russia’s faltering economy. Only Luria, director of a US think-tank that forecasts Russian events, knows who and is close to discovering why. Vladimir Chernyayev, an ex-KGB officer turned powerful financier, tries to silence him with murder, but fails and so takes away the people he loves. Luria’s mother is killed, and his girlfriend, Tatiana, is kidnapped. If Luria reveals Vlad’s secret, Tatiana will die in the torture rooms of the Lubyanka.

Vlad is the grandson of Lavrenti Beria, Stalin’s Himmler. Beria ran Stalin’s secret police and organized his pogroms and bloody purges. Vlad’s wife, Nadya, is the granddaughter of the Grand Duchess, Anastasia Romanov. Neither Vlad nor Nadya are supposed to exist, but they do, and they have a son, Aleksei. The Monarchy and the Soviet have been bred together to create an indisputable heir to the throne.

Vlad has devoted his life to one ambition: Aleksei will lead a new Russian empire. If Luria can’t stop Vlad, it will appear that a czar has returned triumphant on Bolshevik wings and a gaping tear in the fabric of history has been mended. The Russian people will hold Aleksei up as a symbol of the spiritual rebirth of Russia, unaware that the future in store for them is one of gulags and terror, of tyranny.