BOOK REVIEW: Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith ★★★★☆

In a country ruled by fear, no one is innocent.

In the 1950s, Moscow, Russia, Stalin’s Soviet Union is an official paradise, where citizens live free from crime and fear only one thing: the all-powerful state. Defending this system is idealistic security officer Leo Demidov, a war hero and secret police officer, who believes in the iron fist of the law, but when a murderer starts to kill at will and Leo dares to investigate, the State's obedient servant finds himself demoted and exiled. Now, with only his wife Raisa at his side, Leo must fight to uncover shocking truths about a killer--and a country where "crime" doesn't exist.

Tom Rob Smith first novel, Child 44 is a series of child murders in Stalinist Russia. Translated into seventeen languages, it was awarded the 2008 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of the year by the Crime Writer's Association in 2008. Also, it has appeared on the long list for the 2008 Man Booker Prize and was nominated for the 2008 Costa First Novel Award.

Child 44 is part of the trilogy, followed-up by The Secret Speech (2009) and Agent 6 (2011).

Catch the killer. Expose the truth. Child 44 is one of the best crime debuts, with a perfect plot I’ve come across. I’ve read about four thrillers so far and let me just say, this book, has been the best. I have to say, my pre and post-WW2 history are not quite up to scratch, but clearly, the author knows what he is talking about. You should believe the hype about this book. It’s on target, the novel’s atmosphere full of paranoia and delusion.

I must talk about the characters because that’s what kept me turning the pages. Smith’s character are so fleshed out, you either support them or damn right curse them. We can all agree that the hero has to be a likeable man, but Leo Demidov is quite the opposite, a brutal man who obeys orders and doesn’t ask questions. It comes to a point where his wife Raisa secretly despises him but she never leaves him as she stays in fear. Leo’s subordinate Vasili Nikitin and Dr. Zarubin are so horrid it made me sick just reading about them.

I mean, gosh this was brutal and an era I’m so happy I wasn’t born in. It made me ever so grateful for the freedom I have in my life. I’d hate to be in fear and wake up in the middle of the night, getting dragged away from home, to be tortured and then either executed or chucked in prison.

I like how the dialogues are presented without the said tags. For example on page 66:

Leo reached the edge of the riverbank, holstered his gun, stretched out his hand.
– The ice won’t hold. You won’t reach the woods.
Brodsky stopped and turned.
– I’m not trying to reach the woods.

In a way, it actually works. It wasn’t bombarded with ‘he said, she said’ and I was purely focused on the fast-paced action. Apart from Mead’s Soundless (everyone is deaf so they use sign language), I haven’t come across another novel with this type of formatting. Maybe I might even use this kind in my very own writing.

I don’t think I can say anything remotely bad about it. I guess it would be the subject matter because I’m not very familiar with it. The novel explores many themes, including the paranoia of the age, the education system, the secret police apparatus, orphanages, homosexuality in the USSR, and mental hospitals. This book takes inspiration from the crimes of Andrei Chikatilo known as the Rostov Ripper, the Butcher of Rostov, and the Red Ripper. He was convicted of and executed for 52 murders in the Soviet Union. However, it’s a 470 paged novel that I enjoyed and I rarely enjoy long books.

So if you’re into reading serial killers with a string of murders set in a Stalin post WW2, Child 44 is the book for you. I’d happily read the whole series – it’s that brilliant!

Rating 4.5/5
Publishers: Simon & Schuster UK
First Published 2008
Second Publication Date: March 26th, 2015
Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Historical Fiction