![]() ![]() Supposedly, acting on orders from Stalin’s exiled rival Leon Trotsky, they had plotted to murder Stalin, to hand Soviet territory over to Nazi Germany, and to restore capitalism in Russia. In a series of trials that were publicized around the world, some of the oldest and most trusted Bolshevik leaders-men who, with Lenin, had led the Russian Revolution-were accused of being traitors. During the next four years, it metastasized into a conspiracy-hunt that claimed to expose shocking villainy at the highest levels of Russia’s government, military, and industry. ![]() ![]() But the official investigation came to quite different conclusions. Today, most historians agree that it was Joseph Stalin himself who ordered the murder, in order to eliminate a potential rival. How did the killer get his pistol? Who had called off the bodyguards who usually surrounded Kirov at all times? ![]() The assassin, an unemployed man who had been expelled from the Party and bore a grudge against its leadership, was apprehended on the spot, but the case still raised questions. On December 1, 1934, Sergei Kirov, the head of the Communist Party in Leningrad, was shot and killed in the hallway outside his office. ![]()
0 Comments
![]() ![]() She knows most of the king’s enemies are “the good guys,” so she is faking their deaths and helping them sneak out of Adarlan. This section uses content from an article at Book Series Ĭelaena Sardothien is fulfilling her new role as King’s Champion by performing the assassinations he orders on his enemies, or so it seems. ![]() Where do the assassin’s loyalties lie, and who is she most willing to fight for? And there are far more dangerous forces gathering on the horizon - forces that threaten to destroy her entire world, and will surely force Celaena to make a choice. Keeping up the deadly charade-while pretending to do the king's bidding-will test her in frightening new ways, especially when she's given a task that could jeopardize everything she's come to care for. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown – a secret she hides from even her most intimate confidantes. After a year of hard labor in the Salt Mines of Endovier, eighteen-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien has won the king's contest to become the new royal assassin. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() However, here goes….Ĭhick lit or chick literature is genre fiction, which “consists of heroine-centred narratives that focus on the trials and tribulations of their individual protagonists”. Maybe the cover choice is intended to pull in those ladies who like the true definition (see below) but I feel it may exclude those ladies who want something a bit more thought provoking if not over-challenging! Maybe I’m kidding myself that it isn’t chick lit. The quote ‘never judge a book by it’s cover’ has never been truer. The reason for doing this is that both the cover and the title would suggest that this is an easy reading, sexy romp in the sunshine. Before I started writing a review for this hugely enjoyable and thought-provoking book I thought I ought to get the Wiki definition of Chick Lit. ![]() ![]() ![]() Unless you happen to have devoured the methods of the great sleuth of Baker Street, or happen to have a logical and brilliant mind able to piece together scraps of seemingly unrelated information and find a pattern. A mystery without a scrap of evidence to examine. Consider the evidence: An empty, desolate, and inhospitable area where no patrols have found any trace of the missing men. Why, it would curl the hair of Sherlock Holmes himself. ![]() No devotee as religious as Mullin could pass by a mystery as strange as this. Here was a problem that no self respecting reader of the Strand Magazine could ignore. Mullin quickly discovers that quite a few travelers and cowboys have recently disappeared without a trace in the exact same area. ![]() ![]() until a US Senator’s son disappears in the desert and someone realizes that Mullin was the best tracker around. The US Cavalry was glad to be rid of him, too. A hard life in a hard place for a black man in a white man’s cavalry. Thomas Mullin, retired against his will but almost glad to be free of the searing dusty desert around Fort Davis. ![]() |