1988. After a brief, devastating war, America has occupied the Soviet Union. When Dean Joplin, ex-CIA agent and Moscow based private investigator takes on a grisly murder case, he is drawn into a tangled mystery which leads him through a surreal, chaotic country, where commercialism collides with the remains of communism, and the Russian soul cries out for vengeance

After the Republicans win the presidency in November, 2000, a series of events precludes their taking over the White House. In the wake of two nuclear attacks on the United State, the country is vaulted into chaos. President Dick Atherton continues in office and leads the nation to a new Constitution and the birth of the United Socialist States of America. The USSA's first twenty years are tumultuous and greatly change the lives of all Americans.

It happened without warning. A media blackout, a military coup, and suddenly the U.S.A. became the U.S.S.A. — the United Secure States of America. Whatever they called it, it was still a police state. Overnight, rock music was banned, movies were censored, and outspoken teachers began to vanish. Soon, any person who dared question the new authorities was in danger as well. Eddie Ludlow was just a regular high school student in a small Ohio town, but he know that somebody had to stand up to the new government before America was lost. He also knew there had to be others like him. A small, secret band of rebels was born. They took the same name the new authorities had given America and made it their own. A brave new series of America's freedom fighters of tomorrow!

USSA: The Past is Another Country is about what might have been as seen through the eyes of 17 year old Alex Nurov, son of a prominent Russian father and a beautiful American mother. Growing up on a barrier island near Charleston, S.C., Alex has to deal with his dual ancestry in a world in which Russian snobbery views Americans as lazy and parasitic. Alexs unquestioning view of the world gradually unravels when he discovers something he calls The Book. He soon realizes this is not one of the mysteries he loves to readit is the lunatic ravings of Father Piotr Babulieski who presents an entirely different and dangerous history of the Great Uprising that produced socialist America. And who is this Jesus Christ? A general? USSA: The Past is Another Country takes place in vividly described locales in coastal South Carolina and the mountains of North Carolina. Near Charleston, the Nurov family lives on a barrier island on which Alex and his beautiful, enigmatic mother swim and share long walks. On the islands northern end is a huge dunethe tops of giant oaks rise from it like the green plume from an extinct volcanowhich is 17 year old Alexs secret place where he reads his mysteries and daydreams far from the prying eyes of student block commander Gregorov. Alex attends school in the old city of Charleston which is used by Alexs history teacher Brownsky as the example of pre Great Uprising America in which the decadent rich exploited the workers and slaves whose toil was converted into luxurious homes for a handful of capitalists. Near the Nurovs mountain house Alexs discovers what he calls The Book. Alexs knows he should turn The Book over to his father. Or at least destroy it. Instead this discovery turns Alex into one of the detectives he admires, drawing him into a dangerous quest to prove that The Book is full of liesor that everything he has been taught is a lie. There are three women in Alexs life Alexs American mother envisions a great future for her son and expects him to pursue the destiny she has earned for him through marriage. She is willing to use her beauty and almost mystical charm to make sure her hopes cometo fruition. Alex is infatuated with a fellow student, the athletic and gorgeous Martina Antipova, a true Russian and the epitome of socialist womanhood. Dedicated, unquestioning and intelligent she is certainly the right choice. While Alexs curiosity about The Book grows, he encounters Celeste, a wispy young American woman. Easy and indifferent to the strict morality that governs Martina Antipova, she introduces Alex to the seamy underbelly of old Charleston and more

U.S.S.A., the bold new series of America's brave freedom fighters of tomorrow.