This thriller is set in Moscow, during the 1990's. It involves a dissipated, has been Russian scholar, aptly named Fluke Kelso. He, along with other scholars, are invited to a conference in Moscow. The conference supposedly will focus on the recently released Soviet archives. Before the conference, Fluke is accosted by an elderly Russian, who seems to know him, probably because of his one famous early work.. The man pulls him aside; they go up to Fluke's hotel room, and he tells him a bizarre story about his past. In 1953, he was one of the guards when Josef Stalin died at his Dachau. Shortly after his death, he and Beria, Head of the KGB drove to Stalin's office, broke in and took a notebook of Stalin's. Two months later, Beria was dead and the old man, the guard, was sent to Siberia for 30 years.
He has known for years where the notebook was hidden by Beria and wants Fluke to help him make them public. This begins the novel, as one of Stalin's old guard, Marmantov, also is aware of and wants the notebook. He sets up Fluke, by sending him off to Siberia to find Stalin's remaining son who may know the whereabouts of the notebook. Improbable yes, but there it is. Supposedly, according to the old man's story, Stalin chose a young girl from this Siberian town to be his helper, with the idea that she would eventually bear him a son, continue his blood and name and rule Russia.
Fluke's skeptical but believes the story enough to takes a a train to Siberia to find him An American journalist seems to appear out of nowhere, knows something about the story and accompanies Fluke on his journey, seemingly interested only in finding a good story for his paper. They eventually find a wild man who seems to be Stalin's son, half wolf man, for having lived on his own in Siberia for 30 plus years. His education, after the death of his foster parents, seems to consist of having read all of Stalin's speeches over and over, which he can recall verbatim.
Fluke decides this whole escapade, the notebooks, Stalin's son, is crazy, a way for the old guard, led by Marmantov, to regain the power from the new guys, Yeltsin and Gorbachev. Fluke almost succeeds before being confronted by Marmantov, who has set up this entire wild goose chase and hopes to use the son to gain power for himself He comes close to achieving his goal until the daughter of the old man, Stalin's former guard, alerted by Fluke to the fact that Marmantov killed her father, shoots him and the novel ends. I am not sure that all's well that ends well works here.
The book was most interesting in its description of life in Russia under Stalin. The plot was silly, the information around it, interesting, a result of much research by Harris.
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