Bodies keep turning up dead in Mother Russia... and all the murder victims are direct descendants of the infamous Mad Monk Rasputin, the most vilified man in Russian history. The intricate and dangerous murder case falls squarely in the lap of overwhelmed and underachieving Moscow Militia Investigator Iliya Podipenko, son of a famous Red Army marshal. Podipenko must stop the killing before the murderer claims the next victim, the alluring Lena Sharapova, Rasputin's great-great-granddaughter, with whom the rumpled investigator is unwittingly falling in love. Each step draws the policeman closer to a hidden truth: all the murders are somehow linked to an unknown and priceless collection of Faberge eggs from the czarist Romanov dynasty. Along the way, Podipenko must battle police corruption, historical cover-ups, and a cold and ruthless American business tycoon. And the clock is ticking...

W. H. MEFFORD was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is a journalism graduate of the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. A former news reporter, he is currently an award-winning marketing consultant specializing in the entertainment and special events fields. Mr. Mefford is the author of six other books: Trump: 10 Years with the Bengals (non-fiction), plus five international suspense novels-Games of 80, The President's Brother, Thunder Down Under, The Sydney Access and The Stalin Stain. Currently living in Cincinnati, Mr. Mefford, his wife Marnie, and three children-Allyssa, Michael, and Matthew-lived in Sydney, Australia, for four years in the mid-1980s before returning to the U.S.