3838. Who Killed Kirov? The Kremlin's Greatest Mystery, by Amy Knight (read 25 Dec 2003) I read this book because the event (the murder in Leningrad of Kirov on Dec 1, 1934), was discussed in A Broken World (read 21 Dec 2003). The biographical account of Kirov, who became a Politburo member in 1926 and at the time of his death was considered by some as a possible successor to Stalin, was not too interesting, but the events leading up to the murder, and subsequent investigation are the stuff of high drama. The murder was used by Stalin to inaugurate the Great Purges of the mid 1930s, and the unresolved question is whether Stalin had Kirov murdered or merely took advantage of the event to kill everybody he thought might think of being against him. ( )