The book begins in the present, shifts to the time period in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution for the majority of the story, then finally ends once more in the present.
This story begins with Mikhail Semyonov, Misha for short, who is 94 years old and is extremely wealthy. He was born in Russia but is now living in Chicago, Illinois and the time of the present is the late 1900s. The story is a series of audiotapes recorded by the elderly Misha, who wishes to record his life in Russia long ago, and reveal the secrets that have been with him to his granddaughter Katya Semyov, also known as Kate, and to the world.
He was a boy named Leonid Sednyov, which was the name he was born in, and he worked as a kitchen aid at the House of Special Purpose in the Russian countryside. Here, the royal family, known as the Romanov family, had been captured by the communist Bolshevik rebels and placed in this house. The Tsar, his wife, and their five children remain stuck inside this house, surrounded by Bolshevik guards. As the kitchen boy, he works to smuggle secret notes from the Tsar to the nuns that bring them supplies, and those nuns in turn bring the notes to a group of people loyal to the Romanov family, who are trying to find a way to rescue them.
As these notes keep getting passed back and forth, a plan is drawn up to help the Romanov family escape from the House of Special Purpose. The days draw nearer and nearer but at the last second, the Tsar decides that an attempt to escape from the House of Special Purpose would be too risky and that his family could die.
A new commander of the Bolsheviks then arrives at the building and takes control, replacing the previous commander. He seems affable and friendly at first, and the family warms up to him, but they soon realize their is a darker side to him and he his driven towards the establishment of a new government. The Romanov family is scared but there is not much they can do. The new commander turns cold abruptly and essentially barricades them in, painting over the windows and placing bars across them, only allowing the family to go out twice a day and letting them suffer in the heat.
One day, the kitchen boy Leonid loses one of the secret notes he was supposed to send from the Tsar to the nuns. That same day, the Bolshevik commander comes to the house and dismisses the kitchen boy, telling him to never return. A few days later, in the middle of the pitch-black night, the Bolshevik guards wake up the Romanov family. The Tsar and his family are informed that they must leave the house immediately because there is a sign of eminent danger. They take the family to the basement of a nearby building and the storyline turns tragic. The entire family is slaughtered by a firing squad and this entire event is watched by Leonid, who came back secretly. The Bolshevik soldiers then load the bodies of the Romanov family onto a truck and drive away, but as they are driving, one body falls down. The kitchen boy heads to the body and finds out it is Maria, who is still barely alive. He later takes her to the nuns but she dies of her wounds and the boy flees the country.
The story returns to the present where the grandfather is finishing the story on his audiotape. Although his memoir was exquisite and detailed, he confesses to the listener that the entire thing was a grand lie and there is still a truth he can never reveal. He commits suicide out of guilt of the story he never told and never will tell.
