24 years later

Back in 1983 I read this book about a British Secret service agent who is sent on a mission to rescue the Tsar and his family from the Bolsheviks. He teams up with an American adventurer and a White Russian Cavalry commander. I remember enjoying the book and then lending it to a friend. Needless to say I never got it back. I could never remember the title of the book or it’s author. But every time I’ve walked in a used bookstore for the last 24 years I’ve made at least a cursory check for it. And in 24 years I’ve never ran across it, until today.

The book is called “The Buckingham Palace Connection” written by Ted Willis (who it turns out was quite a prolific and successful British writer).

Check out the back cover blurb:

“Escape from Siberia”
It began one hot summer afternoon in 1976 in the House of Lords. But it would lead back to 1918, to war-ravaged Russia where an armored train plowed through Siberia on a mission of deadly vindication, personally ordered by King George V of England.

It was an unlikely rescue team: James Tremayne, a dapper British undercover agent; Tom Story, a brash young American engineer; and Colonel Kasakov, the fanatical commander of a White Russian cavalry troop
-but then it was an even more unlikely scheme.

In a riveting race against impossible odds, Tremayne and his crew battle 4000 miles of treacherous wasteland to reach a little town in deepest Siberia. There Tsar Nicholas II and his family await execution- little realizing that one of the most daring rescues ever attempted would soon alter the course of history.

Doesn’t that sound like it would make one kick ass RPG adventure?