When the foreign newspapers mentioned him prominently, Molotov proudly told his wife what had been written. Molotov is usually depicted as a gloomy type - Lenin called him 'stone arse' because of his zeal for sitting through interminable party meetings. Among Montefiore's discoveries is a pack of love letters from Politburo member Molotov to his wife Polina. Previous accounts of the 'court' tend to understate the wide interplay of feelings in that milieu.

Abnormality and domestic banality were combined in him. As he points out, Stalin was not only a very dangerous politician, but also a man who liked to throw parties, flirt with women, play billiards, dandle babies on his knee and sing the Orthodox hymns of his youth. Montefiore adds to the existing long list of abuses, but where he breaks ground is in his description of the mundane aspects of life in the Kremlin and the dachas. Stalin was a vengeful and unpredictable despot, whose confederates lived in constant trepidation that they might be thrown into the gulag. Politics and economics, though not neglected, take second place to the cultural milieu of high Stalinism. The main subject is the Kremlin 'court', established by Stalin after rising to supreme power at the end of the 20s. As a result, this is a book based on extraordinary primary research. He also made good use of the Moscow archives, but instead of restricting himself to Stalin's files, he had the bright idea of examining the letters, telegrams and diaries of his intimate associates. Montefiore, a skilled journalist, has elicited significant testimonies from many residents of Rostov-on-Don, Georgia and Abkhazia.

But their sons and daughters responded to the call to tell their tale, with plenty to say about what they saw and heard as adolescent members of the Soviet elite. Only one of them, police chief Beria, died an unnatural death. The principals are long dead: Stalin died in March 1953 and his prime associates perished in subsequent years. Montefiore, though, refused to take no for an answer.

Court of the red tsar review