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Title: Conjecture, Fabrication, and Pop-Psychology
Review: King's scholarship is severely in question in this book. Many of his claims about both Rasputin and Yusupov are mixtures of conjecture, pop-psychology, and pseudo-mysticism. In some cases, they're downright libelous.Too bad Felix Yusupov isn't alive to sue him, too. (As he did both MGM and CBS).King makes claims that cannot in any way be substantiated, but he presents them as truth, as allegations, and as innuendoes. The book comes across as an apologists attempt to paint Rasputin in a good light and to brand Yusupov as some kind of insane sex-criminal.King even maintains that Rasputin could actually heal!In most of the rest, he just re-quotes other sources. I know that stealing from more than one source is research, not plagiarism, but the only new insights into the events are from King's imagination.Read it as fiction, not as fact. Yusupov might not have told the complete truth in his memoirs, but you can't take this book as fact either.
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