Product Description During the First World War, American agent Harry Bauer is called on to infiltrate a train carrying a party of Russian revolutionaries, kill their leader--a man named Lenin--and complete a mission that could change history From Publishers Weekly In a thriller that recalls Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal, Hyman dramatizes one of the great "what if's" of history, namely, what if Lenin had been assassinated aboard that famous "sealed train" that took him from Switzerland to Petrograd's Finland Station in 1917? Hard pressed on two military fronts, and with America about to enter the war, Germany makes a deal with Lenin: money and secret transportation to Petrograd in exchange for his promise to pull Russia out of the conflict. Churchill gets wind of the scheme and, with the support of Secretary of State House (though without the knowledge of President Wilson), hires an American secret agent, the tough and resourceful Bauer, to kill Lenin on the journey. Bauer boards the train disguised as a member of Lenin's revolutionary party and, in circumstances that become increasingly perilous after his cover is blown and he has fallen for the charms of a beautiful "comrade," makes attempt after attempt to fulfill his assignment. Hyman (The Russian Woman, Giant Killer) doesn't quite display Forsyth's narrative flair, but his story is a clever mix of fact and fiction, and propulsively suspenseful. 35,000 first printing. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal In March 1917, the German government, desperate to remove Russia from the war, agrees to ship the revolutionary leader Lenin back to Russia in a closed railway car and to finance his efforts to overthrow the provisional government. It is the premise of this rather superficial novel that the English have commissioned Lenin's assassination before the train arrives in St. Petersburg. On the way, the assassin, American Harry Bauer, becomes involved emotionally with a beautiful revolutionary. Germans, Americans, Bolsheviks, and English pursue him as the scheme unwinds. Petrograd is a thriller that does not thrill. Its suspense is contrived, its characters and incidents shallow, its plot thin. David Keymer, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Utica Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
