Edvard Radzinsky

If you aren't interested in Russian history, you might want to look in to Edvard Radzinsky's historical works. If you are, like me, deeply interested in Russian history, Radzinksky's books on Nicholas II, Rasputin, Stalin, and Alexander II are must reads. He combines masterful historical research with sweeping dramatic prose and at times apocolyptic Biblical references that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. He also has an uncanny ability to make the characters in his books seem as real as people you really know. Names, dates, and events lose any dusty dryness they might have had and take on the intensity and drama of action movies and spy thrillers. From the heartbreaking fate of The Last Tsar and his family, to the frightening enigma of Grigory Rasputin, to the dark and menacing presence of Josef Stalin, Radzinsky never fails to deliver heartpounding prose and amaze the reader with his meticulous and in depth research. (The man is never happy unless he talks to someone who was actually there or reads first hand accounts in diaries or personal correspondence.) I'm just starting his biography of Alexander II, and recently finished his work on Stalin. The Stalin biography was without a doubt the best biography I've ever read and one of the most powerfully written books I've read as well.