Paul Brandt is a Prussian survivor of Bonaparte’s retreat from Moscow. The celebrations in Berlin wither on news the French Monster will invade yet again with a new army a quarter of a million strong. But the Tsar sends Paul to London on a personal quest: the search for his lost first love, the elusive Caroline de Brunswick: the mother of Paul’s wife, Anna. But the English are lying in wait and accuse Paul of stealing a hoard of their gold. He is helpless as a puppet and must cut the politicians’ strings to fulfill his task. A death sentence and the hangman’s noose dangle over him with murders and a sea battle lying in wait. All these hurdles lie across his path before he can attend to the Tsar’s task. Even as he tries to free himself of English entanglements, Castlereagh plays him like a fish. Progress requires sacrifices, trade-offs and compromises. Followed by loose ends and the English Paul returns to Berlin where the Monster must be defeated on the battlefield. At Leipzig Paul’s luck runs out and it is not until 1814 when he is back in London that the Tsar’s plan can move forward. With the French defeated and The Emperor imprisoned on Elba, the Tsar’s plot takes shape secretly, but it becomes vulnerable in the process. Paul is deliberately involved in an insurance fraud, as the price for assistance rises. A sea chase takes him to the Equator and thence; Virginia where he learns of terrible news. Did Castlereagh deliberately let Bonaparte escape? The Prussians believe so and they reassemble their army; furious they have to go to war again and face the bloodbath of Waterloo.This book is the sequel to THE ANGEL OF ILM. It continues the story of Paul Brandt. It is a furiously paced historical thriller that throws a torch into the dark corners of history as it rides by. What it lights up is intriguing.About the AuthorToby Heale is an expatriate English author whose background is in finance. He started work as a jobber in the old Market in London when it was an all-male preserve. It was a time of high ethical standards however and those standards are rarely seen today. He joined a firm of stockbrokers where those high standards prevailed and worked the Far Eastern and Emerging Markets of the world based out of Hong Kong and London. Following “Big Bang” in London he started his own company in Hong Kong and ran it for fourteen years. He also acted as Expert Witness in stock market malpractice and insider dealing cases. That is an exacting profession requiring a precise reading of events.Toby Heale is married to Clare and has been for over forty years. They have two sons, two daughters in law and five grandchildren.Clare and Toby live in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The Flight of the Tsar: The History of the Brandt Family from 1812 to 1869 PDF

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