The Russian Riddle

It began with injustice-Stalin murdered Ana Cortez’s parents, naïve idealists who got caught up in his purges in the 1930s, and assumed Ana, a beautiful, magnetic Russian expert from Mexico who was thirty-six years his junior, would marry him to produce a communist dynasty to rule the world. When she flees Moscow, his secret police relentlessly pursue her and peel back one hiding place after another as if opening a matryoshka or Russian nesting doll. In a desperate game of hide and seek that stretches over continents, she eludes them. She is up against a brutal dictator, the international resources of Soviet Russia, and loneliness. She is mighty stubborn, awfully creative, but the odds are against her and her luck always seems to be about to run out. She finds refuge in Texas where she marries, becomes an American citizen, and puts the Stalinist nightmare behind her. However, Stalin’s police show up and corner her in a bar in Central Texas in 1953. She escapes with the help of a stranger codenamed the Sheriff and decides to confront Stalin. She goes to Moscow with her husband and the Sheriff and his Posse. She aims to avenge her parents’ death, bring Stalin to justice, and set in motion reforms that will end communism in Russia and change the trajectory of world history. Against the factual background of the Stalinist era, World War II, and the Cold War, The Russian Riddle: Stalin’s Deadly Date with Destiny sizzles with suspense, action, jaw-dropping twists and turns, and relentless pursuits that are stymied by creative countermoves that range across Russia, Europe, Mexico, and Texas, and involve the pope; secret agents; Khrushchev, Beria, and the Soviet Politburo, and other colorful characters. It will make you laugh, cry, and sit on the edge of your seat-an epic story that validates the importance of roots, law, justice, and traditional values in an era when . It is the first novel in the Posse Mystery Series. 3