The tragic fate of Peter the Great’s unfortunate son—who died from not enduring torture in the dungeons of the Peter and Paul Fortress—does not make him one of the outstanding figures of Russian history. Yet it vividly reveals both the character of his father, the tsar-reformer Peter I, and the morals of that cruel era in which he had to live. The life and death of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich became the subject of a new book by the oldest author in the series.