Why read To Kill Rasputin?

Book cover of To Kill Rasputin

Book description

The murder of Rasputin on the night of 16-17 December 1916 has always seemed extraordinary: first he was poisoned, then shot and finally drowned in a frozen river by Russian aristocrats fearful of his influence on Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra. Or was he? Dramatic new evidence from previously…

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Why read it?

1 author picked To Kill Rasputin as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Asya Pereltsvaig

Author

I read lots of research on Rasputin’s life and death, but this book, unlike others, grabbed my attention like a murder mystery, not a tedious historical treatise.

Although the book goes into a lot of historical detail, including the author’s interviews with descendants of some of the characters in the story, it is never dull or dry.

I was particularly inspired by the way Cook critically analyzes both first-hand accounts of, and later writings about, Rasputin’s assassination, and especially his humor: his 127-word description of how Felix Yusupov must have run on and on through the massive and magnificent Moika…

From Asya's list on the Romanovs, Rasputin and the Russian Revolution.