Gregori Andreivich Gyazin is a distant relative of the Tsar of all the Russias. He is also the Governor-General of Novaya Rossiya, the Tsar's huge colony stretching from the wind-swept Aleutian islands to the southern reaches of Alta California. From the colonial capital in Saint Helena, the city by the Golden Gate Bay, he must confront encroachments of the French and British empire in North America. To make things still worse, he also has to deal...