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Gripping thriller set in a collapsing Russia, with the Western alliance trying to prevent a potential fascist dictator coming to power.

It is 1999 and Russia is on the edge of total implosion. Social and moral order has collapsed and what small semblance of control there is, is being imposed by mafia-like criminal gangs. While public opinion in the West is largely indifferent, the political analysts are less sanguine - Russian meltdown will make the disintegration of the Balkans look like the collapse of a cup-cake. Out of the chaos, however, a single charismatic voice is starting to be heard - that of Igor Komarov, a visionary patriot who claims he can restore Russia’s greatness and bring prosperity to the masses. He even woos Western political leaders with a rather more realistic analysis of the way forward for Russia. Komarov is set to win the next election when a document is smuggled into the British Embassy in Moscow. It’s called The Black Manifesto and it appears to show Komarov’s secret agenda - his political blueprint is really Mein Kampf, the rebirth of Russia will be as a New Third Reich with Komarov as Fuhrer. But can the document be authenticated? And what can the Western Alliance’s most secret Trilateral Commission do about it if it is? They need to find another voice the masses will listen to and obey rather than Komarov - an icon they can cleave to and trust. Once, not that long ago, he was called the Tsar. And so develops a thrilling and increasingly frightening adventure - Jason Monk, ex-CIA, who used to run agents into the Soviet Union, is recruited and slips back into Russia, into the desperate Moscow world of poverty, luxury, gangsters and prostitutes and underneath it all, the titanic power struggle to ensure the outcome of the forthcoming elections.

Author Profile

Frederick Forsyth is the author of ten bestselling novels: The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fourth Protocol, The Negotiator, The Deceiver, The Fist of God, Icon and Avenger. His other works include The Biafra Story, The Shepherd, two short story collections, No Comebacks and The Veteran, and a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, The Phantom of Manhattan. He has also collected together an anthology of flying tales, Great Flying Stories, which includes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Roald Dahl, Len Deighton and H.G. Wells. He lives in Hertfordshire, England.

Reviews

A 100% copper-bottomed, no quibble guarantee of enjoyment. He is brilliant at suspense. The excitement and danger are desperately well done','Vintage, action-packed Forsyth','A great read…One that lives up to the standards he has set since The Day of the Jackal' ,'One of his best…an all too real look at a chilling new millennium','A cunningly constructed action thriller…Forsyth's narrative surges along with great power; the story is terrifying and timely…grips you to the end'