Lidiya, The Photo File

By Robert Hendry

As the Lidiya Petrova series has evolved, I have frequently gone back to the photographs I have taken of Soviet military hardware and locations such as the Project 825 underground submarine pens. It gave me a feel for the locations and events I was describing just as seeing naval infantry or Spetsnaz frogmen helped in getting the atmosphere right.
I had described the Soviet rebreather sets used by the frogmen in “To Kill Our Worthy Comrade”, and compared to Western equipment with exposed cylinders and pipe work, the metal casing gives far less chance for a rival frogman in underwater hand to hand combat, in which the Spetsnaz teams train.
I knew what an IDA71 rebreather backpack looked like, but how many readers have seen a Spetsnaz naval frogman?
I had seen the last of the Soviet all gun cruisers, and looking at the Mikhail Kutuzov, I can understand why the Soviet Navy top brass could not bear to part with them, much as the US Navy chiefs held on to their last four battleships for decades. They were beautiful ships, but it was only when I was sailing within yards of the Mikhail Kutuzov that I fully appreciated what a hold these old fashioned cruisers had on sentiment.
In writing the Lidiya Petrova novels, I have thoroughly enjoyed going back to the photos time and time. In “To Kill Our Worthy Comrade” we met Larisa Burtseva, newly married to her militsia officer husband. Larisa is a lively girl and happily splashes around at the base of the Sunken Ships Memorial in Sevastopol harbour and then climbs on to the memorial itself.
Larisa is doing as countless Sevastopol girls have done over the years, and as I have seen them do. These were all memories that I have drawn on in painting a portrait of life in a major fleet base in the Soviet Union where the Soviet characters are real people and not just cardboard cut-outs.
One day it occurred to me that maybe, you, the reader of the Lidiya Petrova novels would like to SEE some of the places and equipment that are described in the novels. If you have not read any of the Lidiya stories, but enjoy this peep at the world Lidiya and her friends and enemies live in, then maybe it will encourage you to dip into the books. I hope you have as much fun as I have had.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Hendry
• Release date: Mar 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458024701

Robert Hendry

Hi there.My name is Robert Hendry, and over the past 30 years, I have 26 published Non-Fiction books in paper form. I recently decided I would like to branch out into the Fiction field, initially with a subject I have studied for a similar length of time, the Soviet Union.During that time I got to know a good deal about Soviet military hardware and operational doctrine, and after the break up of the USSR, it was interesting to actually see at first hand the stuff I had studied at a distance.Seeing a Termit Surface to surface missile fired for real beats any number of photos!The majority o COl War Era novels have a Western hero and Soviet baddies. In the 1980s, as the Brezhnev era ground to a stand, various factions view for power, and my novels have brought in a limited CIA or MI6 involvement, but the main action is between good guys and bad guys in the USSR.The First Novel to be relesed on Smashwords is "To Kill Our WOrthy Comrade", which covers a plot to assassinate the General Secretary at his dacha in the Crimea in 1981. The real 1991 plot took place at the replacement dacha just a few kilometres along the coast.The novel introduces the C-in-C of the Black Sea FLeet, Admiral Petrov who is drawn into the fight to defeat the plotters and a 19 year old girl communications rating, Lidiya. She is one of those girls who just seem to attract trouble, as you will discover in the Lidiya Petrova Series No 2 and No 3.I managed to get No 2, The Admiral's Woman on line, and if you felt that Lidiya had a pretty easy time in No 1, and landed on her feet, you will fidcover that things get a bit more hectic for the lovely Lidiya in "The Admiral's Woman".As you will have gathered I have these two very different publishing careers and I have thoroughly enjoyed both of them. As a historian, I have to rely on available sources, and imagination is not on. As a novelist, it is important to get facts right but after that the more imaginative and original the storyline the better.All the BestRObert H

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