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Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
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(Hardcover)
Average Customer Rating: 
(63 ratings)
- Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
- Pub. Date: April 2008
- ISBN-13: 9780446402385
- Sales Rank: 1,027
- 448pp
The Barnes & Noble Review
Imagine a world, if you will, where crime does not exist. A startling proposition that seems outlandish, but our imaginations, of course, need not be bounded by the rules and restrictions imposed by realism. It would be a world, one might suppose, where equality reigned, where the thought of violence was so alien that it need not be practiced. People would smile more. They would cooperate more. And they would create a microcosm of peace that, town by town, country by country, could grow exponentially into worldwide tranquility.
Read the Full ReviewSynopsis
A propulsive, relentless page-turner.
A terrifying evocation of a paranoid world where no one can be trusted.
A surprising, unexpected story of love and family, of hope and resilience.
CHILD 44 is a thriller unlike any you have ever read.
"There is no crime."
Stalin's Soviet Union strives to be a paradise for its workers, providing for all of their needs. One of its fundamental pillars is that its citizens live free from the fear of ordinary crime and criminals.
But in this society, millions do live in fear . . . of the State. Death is a whisper away. The mere suspicion of ideological disloyalty-owning a book from the decadent West, the wrong word at the wrong time-sends millions of innocents into the Gulags or to their executions. Defending the system from its citizens is the MGB, the State Security Force. And no MGB officer is more courageous, conscientious, or idealistic than Leo Demidov.
A war hero with a beautiful wife, Leo lives in relative luxury in Moscow, even providing a decent apartment for his parents. His only ambition has been to serve his country. For this greater good, he has arrested and interrogated.
Then the impossible happens. A different kind of criminal-a murderer-is on the loose, killing at will. At the same time, Leo finds himself demoted and denounced by his enemies, his world turned upside down, and every belief he's ever held shattered. The only way to save his life and the lives of his family is to uncover this criminal. But in a society that is officially paradise, it's a crime against the State to suggest that a murderer-much less a serial killer-is in their midst. Exiled from his home, with only hiswife, Raisa, remaining at his side, Leo must confront the vast resources and reach of the MBG to find and stop a criminal that the State won't admit even exists.
The New York Times - Marilyn Stasio
…once Leo and his wife are banished to a town in the Ural Mountains, where another murder is committed, the narrative whips into action as a fugitive drama. The language becomes leaner, the style more fluid and cinematic, as Leo's forbidden investigation causes more innocent people to suffer and transforms this onetime war hero into a criminal. In a society riven by fear and mistrust, even a serial killer seems less threatening than a man who has learned to think for himself.
More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
Tom Rob Smith is a screenwriter and novelist whose literary debut, 2008's Child 44, inspired an intense bidding war at the London Book Fair. The well-received thriller was subsequently optioned by film director Ridley Scott.
More About the AuthorCustomer Reviews
Number of Reviews: 63
Average Rating:
Write a Review
a page turner
merle, A reviewer, 08/31/2008
it's a really good read that is not formulaic...great, if not nasty, characters and a grim setting.
Simply Amazing
Lucas Johnson, a person waiting for Toms next book, 08/21/2008
this book is probably one of the better books I have ever read. I recommend this book for anyone interested in a good read. The characters and the details just keep your eyes pasted unto this book for hours. Overall it was just a great book.
Also recommended: The Farther Shore
More Customer ReviewsFact File
Name:
Tom Rob Smith
Current Home:
London, England
Date of Birth:
February 19, 1979
Place of Birth:
London, England
Awards:
Harper-Wood Creative writing scholarship, 2001
Biography
After graduating from Cambridge University in 2001 and spending a year in Italy on a creative writing scholarship, Tom Rob Smith went to work writing scripts and storylines for British television. He lived for a while in Phnom Penh, working on Cambodia's first-ever soap opera and doing freelance screenwriting in his spare time.
While researching material for a film adaptation of a short story by British sci-fi writer Jeff Noon, Smith stumbled across the real-life case of "Rostov Ripper" Andrei Chikkatilo, a Russian serial killer who murdered more than 60 women and children in the 1980s. Chikkatilo's killing spree went unchecked for nearly 13 years, largely because Soviet officials refused to admit that crime existed in their perfect state. Intrigued, Smith recognized the potential of this concept as a work of fiction and worked up a script "treatment." His agent, however, suggested the material would be better showcased in a novel.
The result was Child 44, a gripping crime thriller about a Soviet policeman determined to stop a child serial killer his superiors won't even admit exists. Smith upped the action ante by setting the story in the Stalinist era of the 1950s, a period when opposing the state could cost you your life. And, in MGB officer Leo Stepanovich Demidov, he created the most fascinating Russian detective since Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko.
Child 44 became the object of an intense bidding war at the 2007 London Book Fair. (The buzz only increased when director Ridley Scott bought the film rights.) But the book proved worthy of its hype, garnering glowing reviews on its publication in the spring of 2008. Scott Turow (no slouch in the thriller department himself) proclaimed, "Child 44 is a remarkable debut novel -- inventive, edgy and relentlessly gripping from the first page to the last."
Good to Know
Feature Interview
In spring of 2008, Tom Rob Smith took time to talk with us about some of his favorite books, authors, and interests: What was the book that most influenced your life or your career as a writer -- and why?
In terms of my career as a writer, I'm going to pick Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow. It played a crucial part in my decision to write Child 44.
Back in August 2005, all I had was a story outline. It was set in a period I didn't, in all honesty, know that much about. I remember walking into a book shop in Piccadilly and browsing the Russian History section. The prologue was set in the famines of the 1930s, so Conquest's book seemed an obvious purchase. Had the book been oblique or impenetrable, had the book not engaged me emotionally, I'm not sure I would've taken the plunge. As it happened, Conquest's book provided me with a jolt of energy. It's a remarkable read -- brilliantly lucid, yet never clinical or detached. There's a cool-headed outrage at the events it describes.
It's one thing to have the broad brushstrokes of a story, but it was when tiny moments started to occur to me, that's when I knew I could write Child 44. It was while reading Conquest's descriptions of villages where all the dogs and cats had been eaten that I began to wonder if there had been someone who loved their cat so much that they couldn't bear to eat it -- even when they were starving to death. That was how the character of Maria (from the opening paragraph) was born.
What are your ten favorite books, and what makes them special to you?
Like a rebellious teenager, I'm going to resist putting these books in any kind of order. I guess I feel uneasy creating some kind of rank. It seems to imply a set of criteria, whereas in reality it's nothing so specific. Even the idea of creating a list as short as ten makes me uncomfortable. It's like being asked to insult some of your closest friends! Had I answered this question on a different day, it would've been a different list.
1. Crime and Punishment -- I had to start with a Russian novel. It was a tossup between this and Anna Karenina. But I've gone with Crime and Punishment because the first 100 pages are about as exciting as anything I've ever read. It's a brilliant, simple idea, much repeated and replayed through a slew of modern movies -- the corruption of a brilliant intellectual mind, the way in which reason and logic can become a dark force. The theme of idealism corrupted has always interested me, principles that lead to ruin.
2. That leads me onto Conrad -- I'm going to pick Lord Jim. At its center is a man trying to redeem himself for a terrible act of cowardice. The plot unravels from a single, impulsive decision for which Lord Jim spends the entire book trying to make amends. Yet it hangs around his neck, like a lump of lead. In the end, themes aside, it's a fantastic adventure.
3. Books are often branded as "page turners" in contrast to "weighty" literary material -- a distinction I've never understood. In an attempt to prove my point, I'm going to pick a nonfiction book, And the Band Played On, an account of the spread of HIV / AIDS. I bought the book (my edition was almost a thousand pages long) in San Francisco. I read it relentlessly on a flight back to the U.K., ignoring the movies on the tiny screen. The book encompasses an enormous number of perspectives and juggles them expertly. The material is incredibly sad, heartbreaking, and yet it reads with the throttle of a thriller. Randy Shilts' outrage seeps through each and every line, much like Conquest, in fact. I'd never thought about comparing those books until I answered this Q&A -- I think it would be quite an interesting comparison.
4. I suppose I should jump back to something from childhood; and for me, really the most important author growing up was Roald Dahl. I could pick one of his books but it would be a relatively arbitrary choice: I loved everything he wrote. He's funny and dark and exciting: it never felt like he was writing down for children. It felt like he was writing up!
5. If This Is a Man by Primo Levi -- I'm wary of saying a book "should be read," since it is a sure fire way of putting people off. I don't like the notion of an obligated reading. But I'm tempted to say it about this book. I rarely cry when I read. I don't know why. This made me cry.
6. I have read a lot of Murakami. I'm picking Norwegian Wood since it was the first book I read of his. I didn't know what to expect and I was spellbound: I don't know how else to explain the hold it had over me. Without wishing to give anything away, there is a section in the middle (as I remember) when a woman narrates an episode from her past. The passage left me speechless.
7. Back to Russia! I'd say Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. Whenever I mention the book to people who haven't read it they presume it to be hard work, melancholy. Much of what it describes is brutal but he is also very witty, slicing up the absurdities of the regime.
8. Robert Louis Stevenson. I loved Kidnapped. It's funny and exciting but, just as important, there's a sadness underlying the novel -- because you're aware that the friendship at the centre is going to come to an end. Of course Treasure Island is also tremendous. Again, it has an incredible relationship at its centre.
9. Philip K Dick. I'm going to pick A Scanner Darkly, although once again, the choice is slightly arbitrary. He makes worlds that are entirely alien completely human and familiar. A Scanner Darkly is funny and sad. I wasn't quite so sure about the movie -- a great cast, perfect cast, but the animation left me cold. It made the story seemed distant to me, the exact opposite effect of the book.
10. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. I was going to name The Count of Monte Cristo, which I brought with me to Cambodia thinking it would last months. I read it in less than two weeks -- a problem, because I actually ran out of books much faster than expected. However, to support my earlier comment that these lists are really just snapshots of whatever comes to my mind at the time, I'm making a last-minute change. I was talking about the difficulty of compiling a Top Ten to my Dutch editor of Child 44, and he mentioned In Cold Blood. The book had completely slipped my mind. I loved this book from more or less the first word. There's a rich mythology around the creation of the book, which the movies (both of them excellent) capture.
I'm not surprised Truman Capote had trouble writing after he finished it. It's too perfect. I imagine from a writer's point of view, it's hard to know where to go next.
What are some of your favorite films, and what makes them unforgettable to you?
I love anything from Some Like It Hot to E.T. -- more or less anything by Billy Wilder and Steven Spielberg. I though A.I. was incredible. The sequence where the androids are torn apart in a futuristic circus is masterful -- devastating. It would compare interestingly with some of the scenes in If This Is a Man -- the process of dehumanization.
I like big adventures -- that's why I'm so excited that Ridley Scott is directing Child 44. Alien and Gladiator are two of my favorite movies. He's one of the best, if not the best, creator of other worlds.
Recently, I would have to say The Truman Show, a movie I love more each time I see it. I love Truman's struggle. The ending, the last line, is a stroke of genius.
Even more recently, Pan's Labyrinth -- the ending had me in tears. Whereas I cry very rarely when I read, movies get me going all the time. Pixar movies are particularly effective -- they always have such tremendous heart. Toy Story a "kids' film," has some of the smartest scenes I've ever seen in a movie.
What types of music do you like? Is there any particular kind you like to listen to when you're writing?
I never listen to music while writing. I listen to music while filling in Q&A s. I like almost anything. To pick someone, the first singer I remember enjoying as a child was Sam Cooke. I think my dad used to play his music on a tape in the car whenever we went anywhere. After a couple of months of listening to the music, I asked my dad about the singer, and I remember being genuinely upset when I heard that he'd been shot. I couldn't believe the man behind the voice was dead.
What are your favorite kinds of books to give -- and get -- as gifts?
Anything that someone has really loved reading -- that's the key, because even if it's something I might not have normally picked up, I'm curious to know what they saw in the book. Without wishing to overstate a case, when the recommendation is heartfelt, it's almost like being given a glimpse into someone's character.
Do you have any special writing rituals? For example, what do you have on your desk when you're writing?
I get up early. That's it.
Many writers are hardly "overnight success" stories. How long did it take for you to get where you are today? Any rejection-slip horror stories or inspirational anecdotes?
I started writing at school -- plays, short stories -- and this followed through into university, so it's very hard to say how long it took me to get where I am today. Professionally speaking, I started earning money from writing when I was 21, and it took three years to build up enough momentum to survive as a freelance writer. That involved quite a lot of scratching around for work but nothing too terrible.
I did receive some bad advice when I was just starting out -- someone I trusted told me to "write what I know". It actually put me on the wrong track for quite a while. People should write whatever they're passionate about. That's the only kind of anything that works.
What tips or advice do you have for writers still looking to be discovered?
One difficultly is being able to judge when to stick with an idea and when to let it go and move on. In reality, the first novel is often the fifth or sixth or even 20th attempt. It's hard to be able to judge when to stand your ground, when to invest the two years, and when to accept that no matter how long you work on a particular idea, it's never going to work. I don't know whether you'd call it honesty, or gut instinct...whatever it is, I think it has to come from within you.
The Barnes & Noble Review
Imagine a world, if you will, where crime does not exist. A startling proposition that seems outlandish, but our imaginations, of course, need not be bounded by the rules and restrictions imposed by realism. It would be a world, one might suppose, where equality reigned, where the thought of violence was so alien that it need not be practiced. People would smile more. They would cooperate more. And they would create a microcosm of peace that, town by town, country by country, could grow exponentially into worldwide tranquility.
Or maybe not. After all, Stalinist Russia operated under a policy, strictly enforced, that "there is no crime." This was a Communist society, where social excesses were supposed to wither away and disappear and where the concept of violent death "had a natural drama which no doubt appealed to certain types of fanciful people." So murders, no matter how horrific, were instead classified as accidents, if they were even investigated at all. The thought of any criminal disruption to the social order was even more suspicious than the general level of state-induced distrust that sent millions to the Gulag or to their deaths. There was no crime, perhaps, but only in the sense that the State held its customary monopoly in this aspect of life, as well.
This is the world depicted in Tom Rob Smith's stunning debut thriller Child 44, a novel that manages the rare feat of improving after a second reading. The first time around, I admired Smith's ability to shed his 28-year-old, London-based screenwriter self for a similarly aged protagonist obeying the statutes of the early 1950s version of the KGB, but spent more time in a state of surprise, caught up in the thriller elements. Rereading Child 44 brought out the novel's meatier pleasures, its ability to create vivid characters in a world both alien to our own and chillingly recognizable.
Leo Demidov, a member of the MGB (as the State Security Force was called in 1953), follows orders. If his bosses tell him to visit the family of his colleague Fyodor Andreev and reassure him that his four-year-old son Arkady died of an accidental drowning and was not (as members of Fyodor's family insist) raped and murdered with dirt shoved into his mouth, Leo does it. If the MGB insists that middle-aged Anatoly Brodsky is a traitor and a spy with information on other suspicious types that can only be gleaned by breaking bones and the administration of a crude truth serum called sodium camphor, Leo does those very things. So what if the truth is covered up, if confessions are false or the soothing words to a devastating family add further poison? This is the culture Leo lives in: Not only is there no crime, there is
no trust.
Smith has us watch as the shaky ground upon which Leo's livelihood is founded on gives way, one fault line at a time. The cases of Anatoly Brodsky and Arkady Andreev leave Leo with glimmers of dissatisfaction, as well as a palpable sense that perhaps the culture of distrust is hardly indicative of a superior society. Then things become a good deal less abstract: Leo's wife, Raisa, an elementary school teacher in a state-sponsored Moscow institution, falls under suspicion of the MGB. Leo is placed in a dilemma no less heart-rending for being predictable: turn Raisa in and save his and his parents' lives, or proclaim her innocence and face the worst? The answer seems obvious to the reader but Smith shrouds Leo's decision in considerable suspense by making the stakes so high as to be unbearable. Child 44 has no room for inconsequential choices because Stalinist Russia had no room for them either.
What happens next once again gives rise to themes beyond the ordinary purview of the police procedural. Leo is shipped off to a remote small town, demoted to the lowliest rank of police investigator. When another child is murdered, brutalized in the same fashion Arkady officially was not, Leo discerns a pattern not only of an active monster but of his own blindness, a willingness to compartmentalize and see only what he chooses that has persisted since childhood.
This lack of insight into his true self is made clearest in Leo's interactions with Raisa, the perfect metaphor for the Soviet culture of fear and also for the faint hope of a greater redemption. What was once a marriage built on practicalities is irrevocably altered by their changed circumstances, and the portrait Smith paints is of a young woman, without the need to cling to civility for survival, bent on speaking the truth, no matter how vituperative her emotions become:
...what was she supposed to do? Pretend he'd risked everything for a perfect love? It wasn't something she could just conjure on demand. Even if she'd wanted to pretend, she didn't know how: she didn't know what to say, what motions to go through. She could have been easier on him. In truth, some part of her must have relished his demotion. Not out of spite of vindictiveness but because she wanted him to know: this is how I feel every day. Powerless, scared -- she'd wanted him to feel it, too. She'd wanted him to understand, to experience it for himself.
Smith also demonstrates that Leo's powerlessness is his greatest weapon in catching a serial child murder cloistered by a society fixated on the nonexistence of crime. The details of the investigation itself may seem a tad haphazard to the sophisticated crime fiction reader, but they are rooted in an abject lack of communication between towns afflicted by similar crimes. Even if the penultimate twist is overly telegraphed by the prologue -- a stark, harrowing section that could stand well on its own -- it also allows Leo to reflect further on the connectedness of his childhood and adult worlds and how he missed key links: "Had he chosen this path, or had it chosen him? Had this been the reason he'd been drawn into the investigation when there was every reason to look the other way?"
Child 44 does not offer pat answers to this question, only suggestions that a society founded on secrecy and suspicion will thwart meaningful connections and support corroded ones. The success with which Leo's dark tale is played out against this broad thematic canvas portends great things for Smith, as well as for Leo, left with the vision to discern everywhere the evidence of crimes both terrifyingly specific, and monstrously general. --Sarah Weinman
Sarah Weinman reviews crime fiction for the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun and blogs about the genre at Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind (http://www.sarahweinman.com).
From Barnes & Noble
A Selection of Barnes & Noble Recommends
A gripping novel about one man's dogged pursuit of a serial killer against the opposition of Stalinist state security forces, Child 44 is at once suspenseful and provocative. Tom Rob Smith's remarkable debut thriller powerfully dramatizes the human cost of loyalty, integrity, and love in the face of totalitarian terror.
A decorated war hero driven by dedication to his country and faith in the superiority of Communist ideals, Leo Demidov has built a successful career in the Soviet security network, suppressing ideological crimes and threats against the state with unquestioning efficiency. When a fellow officer's son is killed, Leo is ordered to stop the family from spreading the notion that their child was murdered. For in the official version of Stalin's worker's paradise, such a senseless crime is impossible — an affront to the Revolution. But Leo knows better: a murderer is at large, cruelly targeting children, and the collective power of the Soviet government is denying his existence.
Leo's doubt sets in motion a chain of events that changes his understanding of everything he had previously believed. Smith's deftly crafted plot delivers twist after chilling twist, as it lays bare the deceit of the regime that enveloped an impoverished people in paranoia. In a shocking effort to test Leo's loyalty, his wife, Raisa, is accused of being a spy. Leo's refusal to denounce her costs him his rank, and the couple is banished from Moscow. Humiliated, renounced by his enemies, and deserted by everyone save Raisa, Leo realizes that his redemption rests on finding the vicious serial killer who is eviscerating innocent children and leaving them to die in the bleak Russian woods.
The narrative unfolds at a breathless pace, exposing the culture of fear that turns friends into foes and forces families to hide devastating secrets. As Leo and Raisa close in on the serial killer, desperately trying to stay a step ahead of the government's relentless operatives, the reader races with them through a web of intrigue to the novel's heart-stopping conclusion.
About the Author
The serial killer in Child 44, Tom Rob Smith's first novel, was suggested by the true story of Andrei Chikatilo, who murdered over 50 women and children in Russia during the 1980s. By setting his fiction three decades before Chikatilo's crimes, the author has added powerful elements of political suspense to his page-turning tale. "I moved it to the 1950s," Smith explains, "because that's when opposing the state was most dangerous. You'd lose your life in the '50s; if you did it in the '80s you'd lose your apartment." His considerable research into Stalin's Soviet Union supports the powerful human drama at his story's heart.
Though Child 44 is Smith's first novel, his skill as a storyteller and his experience as a screenwriter are apparent in the book's absorbing plot and suspenseful pacing. He points to his days on commuter trains as another influence. "There was no way to do that journey without a book: a book you could get wrapped up in, a book you could read standing up, a book you'd miss your tube stop for. That was the kind of book I wanted to write."
Originally from Norbury in South London, the 28-year-old Smith started writing plays in school and continued while he attended Cambridge, from which he graduated in 2001. After spending a year in Italy on a creative writing scholarship, he became assistant story editor for a British soap opera, then moved to Phnom Penh with the BBC to be the story consultant for Cambodia's first soap opera. He currently lives in London.
From Our Booksellers
A pulse-raising, edge-of-your-seat thriller!
--Laura Brauman, Bourbonnais, IL
Expertly atmospheric and brilliantly quease-inducing.
--Seth Christenfeld, White Plains, NY
If Thomas Harris had set a story in the Gulag, this would have been it.
--Melissa Willits, Carmel, IN
A fascinating look into Stalinist Russia.
--Michele Williams, Long Beach, CA
A brilliant debut thriller that fans of Gorky Park will devour.
--Margie Turkett, Annapolis, MD
From the Publisher
A propulsive, relentless page-turner.
A terrifying evocation of a paranoid world where no one can be trusted.
A surprising, unexpected story of love and family, of hope and resilience.
CHILD 44 is a thriller unlike any you have ever read.
"There is no crime."
Stalin's Soviet Union strives to be a paradise for its workers, providing for all of their needs. One of its fundamental pillars is that its citizens live free from the fear of ordinary crime and criminals.
But in this society, millions do live in fear . . . of the State. Death is a whisper away. The mere suspicion of ideological disloyalty-owning a book from the decadent West, the wrong word at the wrong time-sends millions of innocents into the Gulags or to their executions. Defending the system from its citizens is the MGB, the State Security Force. And no MGB officer is more courageous, conscientious, or idealistic than Leo Demidov.
A war hero with a beautiful wife, Leo lives in relative luxury in Moscow, even providing a decent apartment for his parents. His only ambition has been to serve his country. For this greater good, he has arrested and interrogated.
Then the impossible happens. A different kind of criminal-a murderer-is on the loose, killing at will. At the same time, Leo finds himself demoted and denounced by his enemies, his world turned upside down, and every belief he's ever held shattered. The only way to save his life and the lives of his family is to uncover this criminal. But in a society that is officially paradise, it's a crime against the State to suggest that a murderer-much less a serial killer-is in their midst. Exiled from his home, with only hiswife, Raisa, remaining at his side, Leo must confront the vast resources and reach of the MBG to find and stop a criminal that the State won't admit even exists.
The New York Times - Marilyn Stasio
…once Leo and his wife are banished to a town in the Ural Mountains, where another murder is committed, the narrative whips into action as a fugitive drama. The language becomes leaner, the style more fluid and cinematic, as Leo's forbidden investigation causes more innocent people to suffer and transforms this onetime war hero into a criminal. In a society riven by fear and mistrust, even a serial killer seems less threatening than a man who has learned to think for himself.
Publishers Weekly
Dennis Boutsikaris expertly conveys the fear and paranoia that permeates Smith's outstanding debut novel of murder in 1950s Stalinist Russia. Leo Demidov, decorated hero of WWII and an officer in Moscow's MGB (a forerunner of the KGB), refuses to denounce his wife as an enemy spy. He is subsequently demoted, disgraced and dispatched, along with his wife, to a backwater factory. A brutal murder with the same characteristics as one Leo was once forced to cover up convinces him that a serial killer is stalking Russian children. Using Russian accents to their full advantage, Boutsikaris infuses his characters' dialogue with a deep sense of downtrodden melancholia. His staid, deliberate reading captures the soul-numbing oppressiveness of life under a totalitarian regime, as well as one man's desperate fight against it in order to do what's right. A Grand Central hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 3). (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Barbara Conaty - Library Journal
Grisly, gruesome, and gory are just three ways to describe this debut novel by young British screenwriter Smith. While adapting a short story by sf writer Jeff Noon, Smith came across the true account of Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, who after killing more than 50 women and children was executed in 1994. His story inspired Smith to write this grim, 1953-set novel, which ties together just about all of the worst aspects of the Stalinist regime. The Ukrainian famine and the unrelieved horror of the gulag, among other historical hooks, add to the saga of ex-soldier and police official Leo Demidov, who dissects the morbid clues left by the killer. The paradox of crime in a workers' paradise denies any legitimacy to Leo's investigation, since, by definition, such repellent crimes are impossible. With some 20 foreign sales to date and film rights already in Ridley Scott's hands, this successor to Hannibal Lector's lurid mantle has nonstop plotting, a nonstop pace, and even a surprise ending. Horror genre readers will thrill to it; others may be advised to ask for a barf bag as well as their date due slip. Suspense collections in large libraries will likely need several copies to fill waiting lists. [See Prepub Alert, LJ1/08.]
Kirkus Reviews
During the terror of Stalin's last days, a secret policeman becomes a detective stalking a serial killer in a debut novel from a shockingly talented 28-year-old Brit. Skillfully drawing on the only totalitarian milieu more frightening than the Nazis, Smith opens the book in a village of starving kulaks, where two young brothers set out in the snow to trap the last local cat that hasn't been eaten. Myopic young Andrei throws himself on the frantic feline only to have both cat and older brother Pavel snatched by a mysterious man who bags them and disappears, leaving Andrei to stumble home alone. Both Pavel and Andrei figure later in a plot that shifts to the early '50s as Father Stalin has begun his final mad purges. War hero MGB officer Leo Stepanovich Demidov begins to realize, during the course of performing his brutal State Security duties, that the death of the four-year-old son of a younger associate may not have been as accidental as the official report suggested. Family and neighbors claim that the child was brutally assaulted before being left on the railroad tracks. The problem for good soldier Leo is that in the Glorious Workers' Paradise, where every citizen has everything he needs, there is no such thing as crime. There are only attacks by the corrupt outside world. Leo has another problem. His beautiful wife Raisa, whom he suspects of infidelity, has been charged by Leo's vicious rival Vasili with espionage, and Leo has been ordered to verify that claim. Learning too late that the innocent and faithful Raisa fears rather than loves him, rattled by Vasili's treachery, knowing that he is damaged goods, Leo counts himself lucky to be exiled to duty in a hick town where hediscovers further murders and begins a hair-raising hunt for the perpetrator. Nerve-wracking pace and atmosphere camouflage wild coincidences. Smashing. Film rights to Ridley Scott/Fox 2000. Agent: James Gill/PFD
What People Are Saying
Robert Towne
"Achingly suspenseful, full of feeling and the twists and turns that one expects from le Carré at his best, CHILD 44 is a tale as fierce as any Russian wolf. It grabs you by the throat and never lets you go."--(Robert Towne, Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Chinatown)
Nelson DeMille
"This is a truly remarkable debut novel. CHILD 44 is a rare blend of great insight, excellent writing, and a refreshingly original story. Favorable comparisons to Gorky Park are inevitable, but CHILD 44 is in a class of its own."--(Nelson DeMille, New York Times bestselling author of Wild Fire)
Lee Child
"An amazing debut-rich, different, fully formed, mature . . . and thrilling."--(Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Luck and Trouble)
Raymond Khoury
"CHILD 44 telegraphs the talent and class of its writer from its opening pages, transporting you back to the darkest days of postwar Soviet Russia with assured efficiency and ruthlessly drawing you into its richly atmospheric and engrossing tale."--(Raymond Khoury, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Templar and Sanctuary)
Customer Reviews
Number of Reviews: 63
Average Rating:
Write a Review
a page turner
merle, A reviewer, 08/31/2008
it's a really good read that is not formulaic...great, if not nasty, characters and a grim setting.
Simply Amazing
Lucas Johnson, a person waiting for Toms next book, 08/21/2008
this book is probably one of the better books I have ever read. I recommend this book for anyone interested in a good read. The characters and the details just keep your eyes pasted unto this book for hours. Overall it was just a great book.
Also recommended: The Farther Shore
Exceptional Storytelling
A reviewer, a voracious reader, 08/20/2008
This book was amazing, with full-developed characters. I'm already looking forward to the author's next book!!
Pageturner
A reviewer, A reviewer, 08/16/2008
This book hooked me from the first page. I stayed up late every night eager to find out what was going to happen next. If you've got time to get lost in a book, read it!
Well written with great planning and plotting.
Rachel, a reader of all genres., 08/13/2008
Very great read. I found it very difficult to put down. The writer hooks you from the very first sentence and leads you down a spriraling path of great adventure. Will definately read again and again. And recommend it to others!
Showing 1-5 NextProduct Details
- ISBN:
0446402389
- ISBN-13: 9780446402385
- Format: Hardcover, 448pp
- Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
- Pub. Date: April 2008
- Sales Rank: 1,027
Reading Group Guide
Questions for Discussion1. Leo's character evolves over the course of the book. What do you see as the most significant catalyst for change?
2. What propels Leo to go forward in his quest for the murderer: fear, compassion, or a sense of justice?
3. The relationship between Vasili and Leo is contentious from the beginning. Does Vasili feel pure hate, contempt, or jealousy for Leo? Why?
4. When Raisa reveals the truth of their marriage to Leo, were you surprised at his reaction? Would you have made similar choices under the circumstances? When does personal conviction trump duty and loyalty?
5. Who do you think was ultimately responsible for incriminating Raisa. What would it be like to live in a society in which everyone is under suspicion of crimes against the state?
6. Does the book's portrayal of life in a totalitarian state remind you of any other books?
7. In 1953, the year of Stalin's death, there were 2,468,524 prisoners in the Gulag system. Do you think that legacy affects Russian culture today?
8. Which character's duplicity or innocence did you find most surprising, and why?
Further Reading
Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum
I Want to Live: The Diary of a Young Girl in Stalinist Russia by Nina Lugovskaya
The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine by Robert Conquest
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Montefiore
Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times -- Soviet Russia in the 1930s by Sheila Fitzpatrick
Read an Excerpt
His only ambition was a general one: to serve his country, a country that had defeated fascism, a country that provided free education and health care, that trumpeted the rights of workers around the world, that paid his father -- a munitions worker on an assembly line -- a salary comparable to that of a fully qualified doctor. Although his own employment in the State Security force was frequently unpleasant he understood its necessity, the necessity of guarding their revolution from enemies both foreign and domestic, from those who sought to undermine it and those determined to see it fail. To this end Leo would lay down his life. To this end he'd lay down the lives of others.
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