The Romanov Ransom

September 4, 2017
The focus of bestseller Cussler’s tepid ninth Sam and Remi Fargo adventure (after 2016’s Pirate, also coauthored with Burcell) is the Romanov ransom, treasures collected by the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna in 1918 in a doomed effort to buy the freedom of Czar Nicholas II and his family from the Bolsheviks. No such ransom was ever paid, so the massive trove is somewhere out there waiting for either the Fargos or several varieties of bad guys to find. The authors trot out the usual mix of international travel, Nazis, Russian crime families, double crosses, deadly shoot-outs, hairsbreadth escapes, and lively banter between Sam and Remi, but it all seems a little stale. Even series fans will hope that Cussler cranks up the heat next time and tackles two real-life mysteries mentioned only in passing in this installment: the Amber Room, looted by the Germans during WWII from a Russian palace and never recovered, and the legendary Nazi gold train, supposedly still awaiting discovery in a Polish mine. Agent: Peter Lampack, Peter Lampack Agency.

September 1, 2017
Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna offered a mega-fortune in jewels while attempting to ransom Czar Nicholas II and his family from the Bolsheviks, but she certainly didn't expect those riches to finance a Nazi Fourth Reich.That won't happen if Sam and Remi Fargo have any say in the matter. Cussler and Burcell (Pirate, 2016) imagine that World War II Nazis later seized what they call the Romanov Ransom, riches hidden away in the Catherine Palace by the Soviet government. After Germany's defeat, Operation Werewolf sent hardcore Nazis down the real-life "ratline" to South America. Cussler expands that history to suppose the ransom was meant to finance a Nazi revival there. The Fargos become involved because they helped finance documentarians investigating the ratline and then receive word the young filmmakers are missing. They make quick work of finding them in the Atlas Mountains, at the same time uncovering clues to the ransom's whereabouts. Soon the Fargos are shooting it out with the die-hard Nazi Wolf Guard in Marrakesh and then Konigsberg. Later, as the Fargos continue to trace the lost ransom, they battle more Guard members in Buenos Aires, in the drug-lord-infested Argentine jungle, and finally on a lost Andes peak where a crashed WWII-era Avro Lancastrian holds more than one frozen secret. This intercontinental shoot, stab, and chase is complicated by a German businessman's greed, a broken Enigma code machine, mummified corpses, and Russian spies apparently playing both sides of the street. Character development is nil. Bad guys are thoroughly worth a bullet. The exotic and sometimes-beautiful scenery gets photo-caption-length descriptions. Nevertheless, tension never lets up and no fan of the genre will stop turning pages, the entire tome made better by heavy-with-facts research right down to the names of priceless Faberge eggs: Hen with Sapphire Pendant Egg, Royal Danish Egg, Empire Nephrite Egg, and the Alexander III Commemorative Egg.Cussler's plots sometime slip outside of the box of believability, but he's always entertaining.

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April 1, 2017

Here, a huge and glittering ransom was reputedly paid to free the Romanovs from the Bolsheviks, without success, and was then stolen by the Germans during World War II. Now, treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo have gotten wind of the ransom, held in trust by the descendants of a particularly nasty Nazi faction called the Werewolves.

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