Sunset in Siberia

A Russian Tragedy

~~This novel is an account of an imaginary attempt launched in June 1918 to rescue Tsar Nicholas of Russia and his family from their imprisonment in Ekaterinburg. The attempt is mounted by a British officer Captain Robert Dunkeld employed by the British Secret Service, together with a colleague Major Edward Walters and a White Russian officer Captain Krasivi. They are landed in Helsingfors (Helsinki) and make their way with difficulty over the Finnish border to Petrograd. (St Petersburg) They meet two women in this process, Moussia, a young Russian girl and Sonya Verschinkayovna, an exiled Russian aristocrat, sophisticated attractive and single-minded and now employed by the German secret service. There is an instant attraction between Sonya and Robert. In Petrograd they meet further monarchist sympathisers, including glamorous Olga Bulkanin and her brother, but fall foul of the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. They leave Petrograd in a hurry on the Trans-Siberian railway bound for Ekaterinburg together with the recently recruited monarchist supporters. The journey to Ekaterinburg is fraught with hazard, including sabotaged track and further contact with the Cheka. Arriving in Ekaterinburg they make contact with monarchist supporters in the city and assemble a force to attack the Bolshevik garrison at the Ipatiev house where the Russian Imperial family are being held, Sonya Verschinkayovna, the Russian aristocrat employed by the Germans has also arrived in the city by plane, with her own mission. Captain Krasivi encounters a girl he fell for in pre-revolutionary Petrograd, Natalya, who also happens to be Sonya’s sister.