Very well researched and balanced. The (admittedly few) other books I've read about him seem to perpetuate the most popular myths and not truths about him. At 700 pages it can get a bit bogged down in information at times, but well worth pressing on. ( )

At 680 pages of text I found this book very thorough. Indeed Robert Massie calls the book the best he has read on the subject. Smith deftly hacks through the many layers, viewpoints and motivations of contemporary falsehoods about Rasputin's character, background, purported scandals, and effect on Tsar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra. He also richly illustrates the hysteria and malice that afflicted the duma, the press and the church hierarchy and eventually the narod. Reading this book during the ongoing manifestation of the Trump delusion syndrome was doubly unsettling.

The author does an excellent job, in my opinion, of describing and explaining Rasputin's womanizing and drinking. The reader is going to react to this information from their own personal experiences. By not sensationalizing Rasputin's private behavior Smith focuses on what is most important and retains coherent control of the narrative.

The author appears to believe that the tsarina's faith in Rasputin brought on revolution and totalitarianism. Perhaps it would have been getting off-topic but I would have welcomed a brief weighing of other factors such as the defeats of World War I, the infiltration of Lenin into the country, and the effect of the 1905 revolution. The author seems to take the ironic-heroic view of history but perhaps that is inevitable in all but the driest biography.

The author mentions that British internal security agents surveilled a Russian (not in Britain) at the request of the Okhrana. I wish the author had explained the relationship between the two agencies especially since one of the rumors swirling around Rasputin's assassination concerned British involvement (a rumor the author lays to rest).

Ultimately this is a sympathetic portrait of Rasputin. The author does not speculate on what might have happened if the tsar had defied his wife and run Rasputin off into obscurity. Perhaps by not doing that the author creates a more compelling story that engages the reader's imagination. Certainly as I read I found myself imploring the actors to calm down and think more rationally about the deeper meaning of Rasputin's message and, perhaps more importantly, the consequences of accepting it. ( )

Doorstop of a book. Fascinating and sad. Too many detailed pages for me to get involved in one weird monk and his doings; I applied my speed-reading techniques and focussed mainly on the murder. Another myth - the story as we know it is largely spin created by Youssoupoff: he was probably not poisoned at all and was thoroughly dead when he hit the icy water. Youssoupoff himself emerges as a prize s***. ( )

Okay, I'm still not sure what to think about Rasputin. If he were alive today, he'd probably own the most successful PR firm on the planet. As for Nicholas and Alexandra, I think they were inexcusably politically naive and born in the wrong century. Their inability to see beyond their own noses is rather flabbergasting.

Fascinating book and topic. ( )