This book is an adventure/history tale about five characters bound up in the turbulent times following World War I and during the Russian Civil War.  Emil Langemark is a disenfranchised German soldier who stayed behind as the Kaiser's army withdrew from Russian territory in 1918 preferring to throw in with the counter revolutionary army of Nickolai Iudenich.  Evan Buk is a former Russian prisoner of war who was supposed to infiltrate Iudenich's army and spread dissention in the ranks but he changed sides.  Raisa, no family name in the spirit of the Revolution, was a member of the Women's Battalion of death and a women's rights activist. Her friend Fanny Kaplan attempted to assassinate Lenin.  Raisa had to flee for her life because of her friendship.  Albert Chamberlain is a British army sergeant who volunteered to train soldiers in Iudenich's army and got caught up in the battle to free Petrograd. And, Bart Buchanan who is an American spy charged with determining Bolshevik plans for the United States who also becomes part of Iudenich's army before Petrograd.  Captured after the failed attempt at Petrograd, they are sentenced to death but they escape and flee across Siberia and Mongolia.