by Kim Wright
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
NOTE : _ I'm Italian, I hope I managed to explain everything clearly even if not in correct English _
4 stars, it means that I liked it, it caught my attention, but it's not among those I would read again in the future (as often happens with those I adore and I rate 5 stars).
WHAT I LIKED:
1_) I liked that although there were many characters on the line ( not only the detective group but many others ) that develop their own story, it's very easy to get involved in each character's life and events.
Some of those characters are pure invention, some other are real existed characters ( such as Queen Victoria, her granddaughters Ella and Alix, the oldest Tsar's son Nicky ( future Nicholas II ), a young revolutionary that will be known as Lenin ).
All stories and character's thoughts alternate from chapter to chapter, but I repeat:
it's very easy to follow everything, indeed the writing is flowing the events are reported in an orderly manner and with a certain suspense that makes you want to know more.
I also had a lot of fun searching Pinterest for photos of the Romanovs, lots of personal photos of their family, taken by themselves, since they loved photography and had their own cameras.
This took me longer to read the book, but also shows that the subject was captivating.
3_) The whole story takes place in St. Petersburg, when the young Alix goes to visit her sister Elizabeth (married to a Russian Grand Duke, the brother of the tzar Alexander III _ true facts) accompanied by her grandmother Queen Victoria (false).
Although there are no striking descriptions of the city in the book, you can breathe the imperial air of those times and the ferment of the revolution that was already peeping out.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
1_) As I told before some facts are true and some others not. Of course, after all it's a fiction, but I find that the author perhaps exaggerated a little with author's license ( Queen Victoria in Russia ??? It never happened, she disliked them, as it also is said in the book. I just can't even imagine her
at Romanovs court, bowing to the Tsar ).
There are two or three things that in my opinion are too exaggerated inventions, one of which I don't mention because it would be a spoiler, which even remains unexplained at the end, a fact that the true story tells us didn't happen, but which in the book, concerning one of the main characters, it should be clarified and should ended differently, instead it has an epilogue contrary to the true story and that I didn't like.
2_) I liked the whole book except two chapter ( the second one and one towards the end ) in which the group of detectives discuss the old cases and the boss comes up with all his theories about how to investigate ( not THIS CASE, but in general )... HEY ! HOW BORING ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, I can accept a couple of pages about that, but a WHOLE ? ( 2 whole chapters )
If it doesn't concern the case of the book I'm reading: WHO CARES ?! )
Of course all opinions are subjective.
____
To conclude, I can say that I liked it quite enough. I was happy to have read a mystery with a different scenario than the usual, set during a fascinating and also so profoundly unfair and therefore dangerous at the same, time historical time.
I recommend it ( even if from other reviews I saw that people preferred the first and the second one in the series ).
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