Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

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.

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!

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.

Aside from a very valid attack of the DNA evidence that "proved" the recovery of the bodies of five family members, this is a very confusing and poorly structured analysis of "The Truth Behind the Romanov Mystery."

The author has done exhaustive research, but has not synthesized it into a believable alternative to the official fate of the Romanov family.

I have read this book and numerous others on the subject. Unfortunately most of the reviews below were written before Stanford University and the Japanese government independently discredited the DNA evidence in late 2004. There is now no physical evidence of an execution but there is a great deal of evidence for a rescue. I applaud Shay McNeal for her diligent research. She has opened my eyes and I hope many others.

I could only get into a few pages of this book, but from what I can tell the main premious of this book is off.

Many people want to believe that Nicholas, Alexandra and their 5 children did not die such a horrible death, but more than likly they did. In 1917 not much could have been done by their family in different countries and the chances of seven people matching the genetic makeup of the royal family as well as their ages would be hard to find, even amoung inbred royal Europe.

Good hard-work. Silly speculations. Resuing the Czar was nothing more than commercial fiction. There is no evidence it was anything more and to base an entire escape of the Romanovs on this Rudyard Kipling look-alike is nonsense.

I found this book very hard to read. The author would give a thread of information, tell you that more would be said about it later and then you would have to remember that thread to tie it to what was said later. I found myself constantly going back to another page to try to pick up the thread again. The conclusions she reaches are also based on pretty slim circumstantial evidence. I wouldn't even call it that: it was more coincidental. I don't think this book brings anything to the mystery of what happened to the Romanovs.

This volume is absolutely a DON'T MISS for anyone even remotely interested in the captivating mystery surrounding the last Imperial Romanovs. History owes a huge debt to Shay McNeal for her efforts, and there is no doubt her book will be referred to by scholars and hobbyists for many years to come.

Carefully crafted, meticulously researched, McNeal has revealed a treasure-trove of new information regarding this case. The compelling newly-discovered evidence blows the 80-year- old "status quo" version straight out of the infamous Ipatiev "cellar." New hobbyists and Romanov enthusiasts will benefit enormously from this book as well, as it is eminently readable, yet also gives the fine details the lifelong Romanov-maniac demands.

This book is very important for several reasons: 1. The author dares to question what has to now been considered "set in stone" and backs up her theories every step of the way, 2. It sheds light on the fact that the famous DNA tests were and remain problematic, 3. For all intent and purposes the author proves the "Yurovsky note" is a ... and 4. McNeal is the only author since Summers and Mangold's "File on the Tsar" bold enough and bright enough to think outside the box. It is extremely refreshing to encounter an author who not only refuses to leave the family necessarily in the cellar, but goes to great lengths with her research to prove her points.
Anyone who has ever pondered the obvious missing pieces of this story simply must read this book. It doesn't solve the mystery, but it definitely points in the right direction, something the Romanov family has deserved for a very long time.
If you're not already caught up in this famous story, "The Secret Plot to Save the Czar" will have you hook, line and sinker!
Having now read Shay McNeal's book, I have only one question for the author...when is Part Two going to be available?

I almost did not order this book when I saw a few people had given it a 1 star rating. However I also realized that more than a few had rated it with 5 stars so I carried on. Now I'm so happy I did.

McNeal has done a masterful job of researching as well as undertaking the complex challenge of sorting out layered intelligence operations that were launched by various heretofore unknown individuals and countries. If you did not know the history of Northern Russia in the time of Nicholas' abdication you will have a better grasp after reading her book.

Moreover, both my husband and I found more than what we ever dreamed in reading her amazing account of the last days of the Czar, Czarina and their family. He - enough spy action to keep him engaged from page to page. Me - a more enlightened understanding of this tragic episode in Russian history. For those who maintain they could not follow the prose or were confused - perhaps I could suggest they were not very clear-minded in the very beginning.

Much gratitude to Ms. McNeal for her tremendous effort. This book should have a very long life.