The execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family at the hands of revolutionaries in 1918 is one of the pivotal events of the twentieth century. Now in a sensational biography that could not have been written before glasnost, noted Russian playwright and historia Edvard Radzinsky unearths solutions to many of the questions that have remained unanswered since the terrible events in Ekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918. Mining sources long available-including firsthand accounts of the slaying-he creates both a fascinating portrait of the monarch and a minute-by-minute account of his terrifying last days.