Checkmate Run is a real-life thriller that chronicles the author’s life as a writer, medical student, and physician in Moscow during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s and his struggle to survive the brutal Soviet regime.
Alex Loevsky is a medical student and an inspiringly rebellious poet who becomes enmeshed in a battle against the rampant cruelty of the communist rule, where the simple desire to think freely is a crime on par with treason, and being born Jewish is more than a mere hindrance.
When Alex witnesses the murder of a dissident who seeks to expose to the Western world the tortuous reality of life in the Soviet Union, it leads him to the core of the human rights activists’ underground. Alex’s life becomes a death-dealing game of chess, where in order to survive he must remain one step ahead of his ruthless opponent—the KGB’s second chief directorate. The KGB agents are vicious and closing in, and Alex’s odds of escaping are bleak. The inevitable checkmate will either bring him freedom ... or death.
Checkmate Run is an adrenaline rush of a novel that examines the value and fragility of life, love, and freedom, which most of us take for granted.
Allan Alexander was born in Moscow and grew up in a totalitarian state. He was a published poet by the age of eighteen and beat the odds of Jewish admission quotas by being accepted by the Medical School. His collaboration with an avant-garde literary magazine ended with a six-month, politically motivated incarceration. After his release, he returned to his medical studies and became intricately involved in the Soviet Jewry struggle for freedom to emigrate. In 1975 Alexander, his wife, and their young son left the Soviet Union, arriving in the United States with just a couple of suitcases, a lot of aspirations, and thirty-three dollars in their pockets. Today all three of them are successful practicing physicians in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Claire Bloom gained international fame in 1951 with her screen debut in Charles Chaplin’s motion picture Limelight. Among her many memorable films are Richard III, The Haunting, Look Back in Anger, and A Doll’s House.
Stefan Rudnicki is an award winning audiobook narrator, director and producer. He was born in Poland and now resides in Studio City, California. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks and has participated in over a thousand as a writer, producer, or director. He is a recipient of multiple Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as a Grammy Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Ray Bradbury Award. He received AudioFile’s award for 2008 Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Along with a cast of other narrators, Rudnicki has read a number of Orson Scott Card's best-selling science fiction novels. He worked extensively with many other science fiction authors, including David Weber and Ben Bova. In reviewing the twentieth anniversary edition audiobook of Card’s Ender's Game, Publishers Weekly stated, "Rudnicki, with his lulling, sonorous voice, does a fine job articulating Ender's inner struggle between the kind, peaceful boy he wants to be and the savage, violent actions he is frequently forced to take." Rudnicki is also a stage actor and director.