Review – The Romanov Ransom

Two Stars Clive Cussler wrote an excellent book once. Unfortunately, The Romanov Ransom is not it. This pseudo-roman à clef tome is tedious, formulaic, and outlandish. The plot is so absurdly improbable that it negates any semblance of believability. It fails to engender empathy. Briefly: in 1918, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark), […]

Review – The Russia Hoax

Jarrett pens a comprehensive review of the Deep State’s inordinate fraud on our Constitution—perhaps the greatest attack on our constitutional republic in the history of our country. He writes in clear and empathetic style. His narrative evolves in a coherent and logical progression that details the conspirators’ skullduggery in an “ABC” type of progression. He […]

July 17, Anniversary of The Regicide

In the early hours of 17 July 1918, the Cheka firing squad (the Soviet secret police) fired volley after volley into Nicholas Romanov, Czar of all the Russias, and his family: Empress Alexandra, son Nikkei, and four daughters, Maria, Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia. In the March 1917 Revolution, the Bolsheviks successfully overthrew the Romanov’s régime […]

Book Review: Air War Over Khalkhin Gol: The Nomonhan Incident

Rating – Three Stars From May to September, 1939, the Union of Socialists Soviet Republics and the Empire of Japan waged an undeclared war near the Khalkhin Gol (River) over the border between Soviet controlled Mongolia and the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo (formerly the Chinese Province Manchuria). In this little remembered war, casualties in men […]

Putin, Chamberlain, and Hitler

On 2 March 2014, President of Russia, Vladimir Putin ordered Russian motorized infantry to invade the Ukraine’s CrimeanPeninsula.  Such a military incursion violates international treaties and specifically the Soviet Union’s/Ukraine’s treaty of 1954.  The Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, deeded the Crimea to the Ukraine as a gesture […]

Meet Author, S. Martin Shelton

Thank you to Central Texas Authors for posting my guest blog. What compelled you to pen St. Catherine’s Crown, a historical novel about the Russian Revolution? I chose to write about the Russian Revolution—the overthrow of the monarchy and installation of an atheistic Communist regime—to refresh our minds of its monumental impact on world events for […]

Romanov Jewelry

Fabulous hardly describes the vast treasure of the Romanov jewelry cache.  Below are a few samples of this vast collection.  For those who have a keener interest I recommend the book titled Jewels of the Romanovs, Stefano Papi, Thames&Hudson, New York, 2010.   Join the Czar’s1916 Christmas Ball in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg—formal […]

Catherine the Great

Catherine the Great of Russia, (1729 to 1796). Reigned from 9 July 1762 to 17 November 1796. Catherine became Czarina on the death of her husband, Czar Peter III.  Her reign is a study in contrast. Legend has it that she organized a plot to have some of her sycophants murder Peter, and that her […]

Trans-Siberian Railroad

The Trans-Siberian Railroad is the longest railway line in the world connecting Moscow to Vladivostok at 5,753 miles, and has branch lines to Ulan-Bator, Mongolia; Beijing, China, 4,888 miles; and Pyongyang, North Korea, 6,380 miles.   This railroad spans seven times zones and takes eight days to complete the Moscow to Vladivostok trip. By the mid […]

What compelled me to pen this historical novel, St. Catherine’s Crown, about the Russian Revolution?

I chose to write about the Russian Revolution—the overthrow of the monarchy and installation of an atheistic Communist regime—to refresh our minds of its monumental impact on world events for seventy years.    The Bolshevik’s leaders—Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Felix Dzerzhinsky head of the Soviet secret police, for examples—exercised their unmitigated evil and bilious […]