The File on the Tsar by Anthony Summers and Tom Mangold (1976) — the first serious Western investigation into the death of the Romanovs, arguing controversially that the family might have survived the night of 16/17 July. Outdated by the 1990s DNA evidence, but a vivid evocation of the city and the events.
The Race to Save the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport — a brisk and readable history of the final months of the Romanov family, the failed rescue attempts, and the political pressures that led to the killings in the Ipatiev House.
Midnight in Siberia by David Greene — a recent traveller's account of the Trans-Siberian, with a chapter on Yekaterinburg that captures the curious mixture of imperial pilgrimage and Soviet hangover that gives the city its character.
The Last Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky — a Russian historian's full-length biography of Nicholas II, drawing on Soviet archives opened after 1991. The Yekaterinburg chapters are particularly strong.