A Bethesda is mentioned in Ken F's Fall of Giants...........like Bethesda, Maryland??  The Wilson bridge...................would they blow up the Wilson Bridge??

• Gus Dewar, a highly educated American who is also a close adviser to President Woodrow Wilson.
• Bea Fitzherbert, Fitz's wife, a Russian Princess.
• King George V, King of the British Empire.
• Mary of Teck, wife of King George V.

Major characters introduced after the party include Grigori and Lev Peshkov, two Russian orphans who work in a locomotive factory and have personal reasons to hold a grudge against Princess Bea and the rest of the Russian royal family. Grigori and Lev's father was executed by Bea's aristocratic family for alleged improper grazing of cattle on Bea's family's land.

The overall theme of the novel revolves around common people trying, and many times succeeding, in throwing off the yokes so often placed on them by a society (largely focused on Britain and Russia) dominated by the landed aristocracy.