Review: Rasputin's Daughter

I’ve never been a huge fan of those “_______’s Daughter” (it’s a literary meme by now) books, mostly because the few I’ve tried left me rather unimpressed. So when I saw this volume by Robert Alexander, I was intrigued but not hopeful. By story’s close, however, I was left breathlessly closing one of the best books I’ve read this year. Alexander presents a story of the infamous Rasputin’s final days through the ever-changing eyes of his daughter, Maria, who is inevitably caught up in palace intrigue and secret societies herself.

Genre: Novel

Plot: One word sums it up: gripping. I’ve never read a character-driven novel such as this with so much suspense. Or, I guess conversely, I’ve never read a suspense novel laden with so much characterization. Either way, it was incredibly good, and one of the few books I can truly use the cliché “page-turner” on. The fact that educated readers will know what happened to Rasputin in no way diminishes the storytelling which is, in my opinion, the mark of an excellent writer.

Structure: The narrative structure is mostly story-within-a-story, as Maria Rasputin recounts her father’s last days upon request to another character. Maria’s recollections are interspersed with mysterious, foreshadowing interjections by an unknown narrator revealed only at the very last paragraph, which makes for a rather exciting element of mystery in the narration enhancing mystery in the characters themselves. On a technical note, each (each!) chapter ends on a significant and haunting note that successfully pushes the reader forward or creates a yearning to keep reading.

Execution and Style: Alexander has mastered the balance so many historical fiction authors struggle with: how to write an English novel with a non-English-language-setting. Put in too much italicized vocabulary, and the reader is lost. Put in too little, however, and the La Cucina effect occurs: why is this (blank)-speaking character thinking in English?

Alexander’s superb style immerses you not just in Russian language, but in Russian thinking, and yet somehow does so without feeling blocky or wooden. Alexander also excels at voice. 17-year-old Maria living at the early part of the 20th century actually reads like her, not a modern man trying very hard to become her.

What I found most interesting about this book though, and what really pushes it high up on the list for me, is how Maria’s vision of her father keeps shifting from naïve adoration to disgust to finally a mix of both. Alexander is not content to paint us a picture of a cleverly connived Rasputin; instead, he strives to give us a complex portrait of an undoubtedly complicated man.


Theme: The final days of Tsarist Russia, but also fathers and daughters. It touches briefly on Christian sects of Russia, too.


Read This If: you like good historical fiction, good suspense, or good character-driven stories. Seriously, I can hardly think of a reader out there who wouldn’t enjoy it on some level, but I suppose if you are a really big fan of this era of history, you will enjoy it the most.

5 out of 5 stars.


Other Works:
The Kitchen Boy – his first novel about this period
The Romanov Bride – his latest
The Todd Mills Mysteries (written as R. D. Zimmerman)

If you liked this, you might also like:
Sarah Dunant’s The Birth of Venus