My assignment recently as a contributing editor of The Big Thrill, the monthly ezine from The International Thriller Writers was THE ROMANOV CROSS by
Robert Masello. This one came in when I was in the middle of another novel. This
is not normally an issue as I have two weeks or so to complete the book I am on,
leaving me plenty of time for the new one. However, this time I was only half
way through Ken Follett’s monster WORLD WITHOUT END. That’s over 1,200 hundred
pages for those who have not read it. The reason I mention this is that I was
really enjoying the book and hated to put it aside so I could read THE ROMANOV
CROSS. Not the best frame of mind to give a book a fair hearing I hear you say,
and you would be right.
However, Robert Masello didn’t need a fair hearing
from me. The book grabbed me from the start and never really let go. This book
is compelling. That’s not a word I use often in my reviews, you can check if you
don’t believe me. The book shifts effortlessly between the time of the Romanovs
just before the revolution and the present day.We are introduced to Anastasia,
Grande Duchess and daughter of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II as well as
the always interesting Grigori Rasputin. There have always been suggestions that
Anastasia may have escaped when the rest of her family were killed in 1918 by
the secret police. Masello ties into this uncertainty linking reports of the
families’ Haemophilia with a possible immunity for the Spanish
Flu. READ MORE
