Book description
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.
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.
