1/3/2010 Kitchen Boy of the Last Tsar

After finishing the book, I was amazed at the ending. Usually, books like these do not have endings that satisfy the mystery that they create. Instead, in this story the main character's entire plot and storyline has turned out to be a lie. Misha (now called Leoneka) told his granddaughter that he was the kitchen boy of the Tsar's family and the he accidentally led to their deaths. He stated that he was the one who ended up saving the Grand Duchess and tried to save Aliskei. Unbeknown to the reader, Misha is lying. His grandaughter later finds out that her grandfather's name was actually Volodya and he was one of the gaurds that killed the Tsar's family. Kate (the grandaughter) is confused but she "understood it could be no other way.......Her grandfather had been on of them, one of the Reds." (222) Kate soon understands that her granfather had to live with emotional suffering for his entire life and this is the main point of the story. That regarding the russian Revolution, nothing is as it seems. There was deceit, lying, and fraud.