The Fabergé Secret: A Novel From the Perspective of An Aristocratic Russian Architect

I wouldn't have known about the existence of The Fabergé Secret  by Charles Belfoure if  I hadn't encountered it on Book Sprout.  I had to prioritize this review over a book that I had finished previously because Book Sprout gave me a deadline for posting this review.

 

                                 

The Fabergé eggs that the Tsars of Russia cherished as art , were more than art in this novel.   They became a means of hidden communication.  While I was reading, it occurred to me that too many people had access to these eggs. I don't know why none of the characters seemed to realize this.  The Fabergé secret was too widely shared to really be a secret.  This was bound to get some people into huge trouble. That definitely wouldn't be a surprising development.  The element of suspense in the book was limited.The only question was when it would happen, not if it would happen. 

I did find the protagonist, Dmitri, very sympathetic.   Some readers might not find it credible that he didn't share so many of the prejudices of his class.  He did seem pretty modern in his outlook. Yet I felt that he was believably exposed to differing perspectives.  It was also believable to me that his friend, Tsar Nicholas II, was so hermetically sealed away from the general population that he couldn't transcend his limited way of looking at the world.  

I suspect that it's possible that author Charles Belfoure may not have always researched his portrayals of the Jewish characters.  The most notable example was the Jewish Baron inviting a non-Jewish character who liked challah to a Passover seder saying that there would be plenty of challah.  On Passover all leavened bread like challah would be forbidden.  They would have been eating the unleavened matzoh instead.

The high level conspiracy behind the anti-Jewish pogroms revealed in this novel seemed so similar to the current white supremacist conspiracy to attack Black communities.  Both conspiracies seem so culturally insidious, but neither are inevitable.  I'd like to think that over time there will be so many more people like Dmitri that racist conspiracies will no longer be viable.