Khan in Rasputin's Shadow - Tapa dura

Khan in Rasputin's Shadow; is a unique book that defies contemporary fiction. It's setting is the Colorado Desert and the Administrative Maximum United States Penitentiary, or "Supermax". In reality, Supermax is located in Florence, Colorado, and was deemed by Guinness as the most secured prison in the world. It is home to over two hundred inmates, all of them considered too dangerous for society.

The two main characters of the book are codenamed "Khan" and "Rasputin", and they work for a shadow agency known only as the Axis Group. Khan is a former U.S. Special Forces operative, at retirement age but selling his services as mercenary to Axis. Rasputin is younger, more energetic, and is a lifelong survivalist, tracker, and stealth expert who was recruited by Axis a few years ago. For the first time ever, they are assigned together for a mission: to infiltrate Supermax and to extract an inmate known only by his designation in the federal prison records as Prisoner 866.

This book uses in-depth knowledge of the prison system to flesh out even the characters inside Supermax, such as Warden Umway and his associate wardens. It reveals their day-to-day lives inside the pen, and what they must endure each day to keep the inmates in check.

Khan and Rasputin must find any exploitable method inside the prison in order to complete their mission tactfully. But when it seems Axis has sent an assassin "sweeper" to silence them both, the origins, ethics, and motives of their faceless employers come into question. Who is Prisoner 866? What does Axis want with him?

Part suspense, part tactical caper, and part character study, "Khan in Rasputin's Shadow" is a well-researched caper. It delves into the psychology of the search, the careful training it takes to go unnoticed, and what drives some people to take dangerous risks. It also looks into the carefulness of our government's prison systems, and the dangers they keep from all of us, while propelling the characters towards either success or doom at the hands of a shadowy conspiracy.