The Secret Plot to Save the Tsar: The Truth Behind the Romanov Mystery [Hardcover]

Shay McNeal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 22, 2002

The tragic fate of the Romanovs is well known: on July 17, 1918, the Tsar, his wife, their four daughters and ailing heir were led down to a basement in Ekaterinburg, Russia, and murdered in cold blood by a Bolshevik firing squad. The DNA analysis and identification of the bones were the conclusive proof the world was waiting for, and the case was considered closed. Until now.

Shay McNeal's controversial, groundbreaking new account challenges this accepted view. She presents convincing new scientific analysis questioning the authenticity of the "Romanov" bones and uncovers an extraordinary tale of espionage and double dealing that has been kept secret for more than eighty years.

Based on extensive study of American, Allied and Bolshevik documents, including recently declassified intelligence files, McNeal reveals the existence of a shadowy group of operatives working at the highest levels of the Allied, Bolshevik and German governments to free the Imperial family and guide them to safety.

Most controversially, McNeal believes that one of the plots to rescue the Tsar and his family may, possibly, have succeeded -- and she has compelling evidence to support it.

Told with the pace of a thriller, this highly readable and vigorously researched book forces a dramatic reappraisal of one of the most enduring mysteries of the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Russian history is replete with mysterious political deaths, none more compelling and long-lasting than the assassinations of Nicholas II's family. Recent DNA evidence purported to prove conclusively that the last of the czar's family was indeed killed by the Bolsheviks in July 1918, but McNeal doesn't buy it. A longtime historical researcher who has contributed to both the BBC and the Discovery Channel, McNeal amasses a pile of circumstantial evidence in her attempt to question this account. Basing some of her information on recently declassified files, she shows how Allied, German and Bolshevik officials formulated plans to save the Romanovs, who were held in captivity before they were executed. But McNeal is on shakier ground when she disputes the widely believed deaths of the Romanovs mainly on the basis of second-hand accounts, some internal inconsistencies and wild speculation-such as when Pres. Franklin Roosevelt remarked that he had a controversial historical assassination that he wanted solved-because the DNA tests still represent the most scientific information available in this case. As McNeal herself admits, "[B]ut what can be asserted with certainty is that the true historical account has yet to be completely constructed." As a result, the book is unlikely to engage readers beyond those already enthralled by the Romanov case.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Aside from their devotion to each other and their family, Nicholas and Alexandra had few admirable personal qualities; as political actors, they were disastrously inept, combining inflexibility, arrogance, and amazing insensitivity to the needs and desires of their subjects. Yet an obsession with their fate endures. McNeal is a historical researcher who has contributed to the BBC and the Discovery Channel, and her efforts to fathom the supposed "mystery" of their captivity and murder is perhaps more credible than most recent accounts. Her descriptions of the various Allied efforts to rescue the Romanovs seem well researched, and they unfold like a good thriller with tragic overtones. Unfortunately, when she shifts gears and suggests that some of the family may indeed have been rescued, she descends into a fantasy world, like so many other tales, just like other Romanov biographers. Her attacks on the forensic evidence taken from the remains excavated at Ekaterinburg are wildly speculative, and she absurdly inflates the importance of minor inconsistencies. Still, there are some interesting revelations here. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition (October 22, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688169988
• ISBN-13: 978-0688169985
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #148,633 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, But Not Completely Believable, November 10, 2002

By 

John D. Cofield - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Secret Plot to Save the Tsar: The Truth Behind the Romanov Mystery (Hardcover)

Shay McNeal has attempted to refute what seems to many to be a dead issue: the mystery of what happened to the last Tsar and his family. Some parts of this book have strength and produce some interesting new information, but unfortunately the main premise of the book cannot hold water.

The first section deals with the complicated negotiations and intrigues that went on in 1917 and 1918 between Britain, Germany, the Russian Provisional Government, and later with the Bolsheviks over what was to happen to the deposed Tsar Nicholas II and his family. McNeal has turned up some surprising material, such as that the British were apparently constructing a house for the Tsar in Murmansk where he could await a restoration, and invokes some well known names in the world of espionage like Sidney Reilly, the ace of spies.

Next McNeal covers some familiar ground as she recapitulates the inconsistencies and fabrications of the official Sokolov account of the death of the Imperial Family. Very little of this is new, as numerous investigators over the last thirty years or so have poked holes in Sokolov's official line. McNeal brings in a new twist as she points out a few discrepancies and misstatements that she feels point the way to the true story. She also relies quite a bit on Rescuing the Czar, published in 1920 in the US. Most researchers have dismissed this book as an imaginative but false account, but McNeal does a good job of pointing out that the book does seem to have some information that was apparently pretty close to the truth.

Toward the end of the book McNeal's story trails off a bit. There is really no way to dispute the fact that bodies with mitochondrial DNA corresponding to that of the tsar and his family were discovered in a grave near Ekaterinburg in 1991, pretty much in the same area the accounts of the assassins had pinpointed all along. McNeal tries to dismiss the DNA research as inconclusive and hints it may even have been planted on the bodies. Ths is simply ridiculous since there was no way whoever did the planting could have known the correct DNA haplotypes for both Nicholas and Alexandra.

McNeal has done an enormous amount of research, but unfortunately, knowing the serial codes for Colt revolvers used in the murders and getting the timetables for British gunboats on Chinese rivers doesn't make her hypothesis believable. The biggest problem of all, of couse is if the Tsar and his family did escape, where did they eventually wind up? McNeal trails off here, of course, because there is simply no gainsaying that Nicholas, Alexandra, and their children were murdered in July 1918 in Ekaterinburg. The details were probably not exactly like the official story has always had it, but in the end the Romanovs wound up in that common grave in the forest.

That's really the saddest part of this book, that all those machinations and plots couldn't save the lives of a man who was a bad tsar but a good husband and father, his loving wife, their four beautiful daughters, and their ailing son.

If you would like more information on the end of the Romanovs, I'd suggest Robert K. Massie's The Romanovs: The Final Chapter. For more information on mitochondrial DNA and its uses, read The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not believable, July 1, 2007

By 

Acid Dropper "Acid Droppin'" (Sulphur, LA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Secret Plot to Save the Tsar: The Truth Behind the Romanov Mystery (Hardcover)

As hard as I tried to take this book seriously, I just can't. The evidence she provides to suggest the Romanovs bones were not authentic fell flat on its face, making the rest of the book do the same. And better yet, she places much of her reliance on a book written in 1920 called "Rescuing the Czar" which suggests the Imperial Family were rescued through a "secret tunnel" under the Ipatiev House. I'm sorry Ms. McNeal, but there's got to be more to convince me. 2 stars for effort!

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't bother with this tosh., October 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Secret Plot to Save the Tsar: The Truth Behind the Romanov Mystery (Hardcover)

Where to begin? Shay McNeal's Secret Plot to Save the Czar has little to offer readers apart from what the author believes to be the truth. In fact, the various "reports" of plans to save the Imperial Family are far from the truth. If Nicholas and Alexandra (and their children) had survived, family members would have known about it. Although it was difficult to come to terms with the tragic events at Ekaterinburg, family members eventually accepted that the family was killed in July 1918. In the past decade, researchers and historians have been welcomed into former Soviet archives, and have come away with a more focused picture of the circumstances of what led to Ekaterinburg, and what followed.

It is foolhardy for an author to try and convince readers that during the first world war, the British and Americans were planning to rescue the Imperial Family. The British government had no interest in Nicholas, and even, his own cousin, George V, refused to lift a finger to help the family.

The publisher is crazy to package this book as history. Put in the fiction section next to the Eugenia Smith. A Chicago-based woman, Smith wrote a book claiming she was Anastasia. Pure fiction.