D.V. Chernov is an award-winning author of historical and crime fiction. His debut novel Commissar was named Finalist for the prestigious Hemingway International Book Award. D.V. Chernov was born in Omsk, Russia and grew up in the Soviet Union during the final decades of the Cold War before immigrating to the U.S. in 1991. After building a career in the high-tech industry, he decided to follow his long-time dream of writing his first novel.
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After the 1917 revolution, Russia is teetering on the brink of civil war. When the Soviet head of state Lenin is shot by an assassin, CHEKA agent Anna Sokolova is tasked with hunting down British spy Sidney Reilly who set in motion an audacious plot to alter the course of Russian history. Meanwhile, in New York, an American WWI veteran William Arden sets sail on a mission to Russia that is not what it appears to be, and the true purpose of which even he may not yet fully comprehend. Their paths cross in Petrograd, and they become unlikely allies. As a bloody conflict ignites throughout Russia, Anna’s loyalties are tested. Can she save her country and not lose herself in the process?
Based on historical events, Commissar is a gripping spy thriller about the little-known period of US and British intervention in the Russian Civil War (1918-22).
Commissar: A Novel of Civil War Russia
D.V. Chernov
A gripping historical spy thriller based on incredible real events
Book Excerpt or Article
The novel Commissar spans the vast territories of the former Russian Empire, from Vladivostok in the far east to Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in the west; and from Arkhangelsk near the Arctic Circle to Baku on the Caspian Sea in the south.
The Russian Empire covered an area of nearly nine million square miles (almost 2.5 times the size of the US) spanning 11 time zones. Despite its vast size, it was very sparsely populated, with only two cities surpassing one million inhabitants — Moscow and Petrograd. Most of the roads throughout the empire were unpaved and unserviced, leaving the rivers and the railways as the most reliable transportation routes. The recently finished Trans-Siberian Railway took twenty-five years to build and stretched almost six thousand miles from Moscow to Vladivostok.
Before the 1917 revolution, the Romanovs ruled more than 140 million people and more than 180 ethnic groups speaking over 100 different languages. In fact, less than half of the population of the empire were ethnic Russians. Even Tsar Nicholas II’s wife was German, and he himself had barely any Russian blood in him, thanks to his family’s centuries-old practice of inter-marrying European royalty.
Of course, as vast as Russia is, it is not the only country where the action of Commissar takes place. You’ll find some of the characters also in the US, England, and France.
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