"He never reached the stone. As his hand opened to grasp it a beam of light, brilliant and narrow flashed from the stone to his eyes."
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The Goliath Stone by Charles Cobb Trafford Publishing
book review by Peter M. Fitzpatrick
Lieutenant Miles Armstrong is a Canadian pilot serving the Royal Flying Corps of England in 1917. He is summoned to go on a secret mission for MI6 and the English King. It seems that the King once had a fancy for the present Queen Marie of Rumania and would now like to evacuate her from there to safer grounds since Bucharest has fallen to the Germans. Armstrong is to fly a two-seater biplane to the new capital, Jassy, and fly her out. But added to his mission is the recovery of the Rumanian state archives, crown jewels, and gold reserves, which the Rumanian monarchy had sent to Tsar Nicholas II in Moscow for safekeeping. The threat of the Bolshevik revolution makes their return imperative. Armstrong, accompanied by a colorful Irish airplane mechanic named O'Reilly, meets up with one Colonel Joe Boyle, who will lead them from Jassy by train up to Moscow and back. But not before a beautiful Zionist operative named Anne Marie intercepts Armstrong, the two falling in love almost at once. It turns out the Crown Jewels contain a very special diamond, reputed to be the very stone that David slew Goliath with. The Zionists want it to help found the state of Israel. The Germans and Bolsheviks want it for its monetary value. Colonel Boyle wants it for his lover, the Queen Marie.
The author is very good at pacing , the action never lagging, the setting in revolution-torn Russia riveting and inherently suspenseful. His characters are colorful, but believable. A few, like Colonel Boyle, are based on actual historical figures. With lots of Canadian pride and distinctly North American attitudes to things like European tradition, the Armstrong character resonates with the modern ear. Both he and Anne Marie are poised toward the future, while the world around them, in the Balkans and Russia, struggles with the chains of the past. The mysterious stone adds just enough magic to make the senseless slaughter of the war somehow more meaningful.