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Summary: Picks up speed after the murders
Review: The KITCHEN BOY is rather like those movies based on novels. If you've read the book and the movie is too faithful to the novel, the movie version is usually a disappointment. If you've read Robert K. Massie's THE ROMANOVS, THE FINAL CHAPTER, you're already familiar with what happened in the basement of the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg where the Bolsheviks riddled the family with bullets, so that part of the story is anticlimactic.
The story picks up speed afterwards, however. Romanov fanatics disagree on what happened when Yurovsky and his cohorts set off to bury the bodies. Yurovsky said he burned two of the bodies, but forensic scientists maintain it would have been impossible for him to build a fire hot enough to destroy all of the bones. Over seventy years later, when what was left of the bodies was found, Maria and Alexei (The Heir) are missing. Did they survive? Author Robert Alexander uses this mystery to full effect.
Alexander (Mystery writer R.D. Zimmerman) has spent nearly thirty years in Russia. He knows the language and is able to liberally sprinkle the text with realistic dialogue. He has chosen as his narrator, Mikhail Semyonov, a millionaire living in Lake Forest, Illinois, who is making a tape for his granddaughter Kate, telling her about those final days in the Ipatiev house, where he worked as a kitchen boy. The Bolsheviks had murdered the seven Romanovs, their doctor, their maid, the cook, and the footman, even Jimmy, the little dog, but they let Leonka, the kitchen boy, go just hours before the slaughter. He ostensibly follows the truck as it heads for the Four Brothers Mine where Yurovsky planned to bury his victims. It's raining out and the road is muddy; two bodies fall off of the truck and now we have some suspense. Most accounts of the execution in the basement maintain that bullets bounced off of the jewels the girls had secreted in their corsets and the girls were hard to kill. With the smoke and the confusion it would have been possible for one of the girls to survive. That's how Anna Anderson was able to pass herself off as Anastasia all those years.
Alexander (Zimmerman) switches gears toward the end, after the grandfather's death, when he has the Kate go to Russia, to present the jewels her father smuggled out of Russia to the Hermitage Museum. Kate becomes the viewpoint character and she's a lot smarter than her grandfather gave her credit for being. This is where Alexander pulls off a twist that makes the story well worth reading. Hint, Kate's son is a hemophiliac.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating page turner
Review: This book is a fascinating page turner concerning actual events. Robert Alexander does an interesting job of incorporating historical events in a fictional manner. I could not put this book down.
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Summary: The end of the Romanovs?
Review: This extremely well written novel reads like a true life adventure story. It's a tale of the murder of the Russian imperial family in 1918 in their place of exile in Siberia, told by one of the people who was present at the time. The plot ranges from revolutionary times up to the present day, and involves a deep, dark mystery: why were two of the bodies never discovered? The reader is quickly drawn into the story, and the writing is such that, even though you know the terrible fate which awaits the last Tsar and his family, you keep hoping the ending will be different. There are a few twists at the end, which brings the tale to a bittersweet conclusion. Highly entertaining and sobering reading, and I recommend it very much!
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Summary: An interesting read for Romanov junkies...
Review: This novel takes real history and blends it almost seamlessly with creative fiction, treating the family with fairness and respect in the process. Some of the non-historical premises are not terribly believable if you know the real facts involved, and the story sometimes sinks into overdrama, but that doesn't detract from the fun. Reality aside, the story works. If you consider yourself in love with Nicholas II's family, you'll probably very much enjoy it. If you like historical fantasy, you may enjoy it. If you are wedded to reality at all costs, you will probably be bothered.
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Summary: Pleasant read -- but a mystery????
Review: Those interested in the Romanovs -- and there are many -- may find this book well worth reading. But the idea that it's a "mystery" with startling revelations should be dispelled. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out, from the first 20 or so pages, exactly what the secrets are going to be. I don't want to give anything away here that might spoil the "surprise" ending, so I won't delve into the reasons why the jig is up so early in the game, but I can say without doing that that there are other troublesome elements in the book. The narrator is leaving a long taped autobiography for his beloved granddaughter, who can carry on conversations in Russian -- why would he feel the need to translate every Russian word into English every single time it appears? Someone should have told this author that his readers aren't stupid -- this is a short book, and we can remember what things mean from one chapter to another. Define the word once and let it go at that. Often we can figure out what a word means from context. If you're really worried we won't understand Russian, you can add a short glossary to the end of the book. I was annoyed by the prologue, which seemed to me unnecessary, but that's a minor beef. Three stars for the subject matter; I'm a sucker for anything about the Romanovs.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book!
Review: Very interesting take on an otherwise obscure topic. The last days of the Tsar and Tsaritsa of Russia in the weeks before their death. This is cleverly told through the eyes of their kitchen boy, who participates in many of the events related within the book. It reads like a history, but without the dryness of a history book, since it is indeed fiction. It is not a long book and holds your interest, especially at the end. Definitely a must read for lovers of historical fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: Very nice, good mix of fact and fiction. I was a little disappointed that the whole story changed in the last chapter. Otherwise, it was very good.
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Summary: What If...?
Review: What if . . .? What if . . . one of the witnesses to the brutal murders of the Romonov family were still alive today? What would he tell us? Would he describe to us the horrors of that fateful, fearful night in 1918 when the Romonovs and their attendants were taken to the basement of the "House of Special Purpose" and executed? Would he reveal to us what became of the Romonov jewels---jewels worth hundreds of millions of dollars? Would he explain to us why the bodies of two of the Tsar's children were missing from the hidden mass grave in which the executed were buried and lay until they were discovered in 1991? What if . . .? 1918, The House of Special Purpose It is here that the Romonov family and their attendants are imprisoned following the Bolshevik Revolution. And it is here-through the eyes and memories of the kitchen boy Leonka-that we witness the end of a dynasty. It was warm as only Siberia could be in the summer-humid, buggy, stifling . . . For two weeks the former Emperor had been asking-just a single window, just a little fresh air, that was all the former Tsar wanted for his family . . . I can't imagine what it must have been like for him, for Nikolai Aleksandrovich. One day he commands one-sixth of the world, the next he isn't even in charge of a single pane of glass. And so they lived-behind palisades and locked and limed windows, never knowing from one hour to the next what would befall them. We come to know, in an intimate way, the personalities of the Romonovs. Nikolai, the devoted husband and father, lover of order, watches quietly, thoughtfully, as his world spins out of control. Aleksandra, whom we think aloof, is instead compassionate and caring toward the ill while at the same time sewing like a madwoman, hiding her beloved jewels in her daughter's corsets and the hems of clothing. A devoted and loving family they are. In the midst of the uncertainty and suffering there are also simple pleasures: a walk in the garden, a cooling rain, a basket of fresh, brown eggs and a chetvert of milk, a book to read. The end, it seems, is slow in coming, but arrive it does. And down the 23 steps the family and their attendants walk, down to the basement. The horrific execution is graphically described in minute detail. But that is not the end of this story---not by far. Things are not as they seem. Twists and turns await the reader in this meticulously plotted, beautifully written novel. Highly Recommended.
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