The Last Train To Kazan

the long version

As World War One rumbles to a close Russia is wracked by bloody civil war. Communist control on the country is slipping, and in the struggle the Imperial family have become a very valuable commodity, a trump card to be played at an opportune moment. When ex-Tsarist agent Pyotr Ryzhkov is picked up by the Bolshevik secret police, he has two choices: find the Romanovs, or face the firing squad. It appears that one choice is little better than the other as he ventures into the war-torn city where they are rumoured to be held. Yekaterinburg is at the end of the line, a frontier town cut off from Moscow by the White Russians and their allies. It is a nest of foreign spies armed with gold and guns, Bolsheviks determined to sell the family to the highest bidder, and local soviets desperate to kill them. Whispers and rumour flood the city, but in the fog of war Ryzhkov knows that only the last man to see the Romanovs can ever know the truth.