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Child 44 | 
 enlarge | Author: Tom Rob Smith
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
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Rating:  91 reviews
Sales Rank: 878
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 448
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.5
ISBN: 0446402389
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.92
EAN: 9780446402385
ASIN: 0446402389
Publication Date: April 29, 2008
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Amazon.com
If all that Tom Rob Smith had done was to re-create Stalinist Russia, with all its double-speak hypocrisy, he would have written a worthwhile novel. He did so much more than that in Child 44, a frightening, chilling, almost unbelievable horror story about the very worst that Stalin's henchmen could manage. In this worker's paradise, superior in every way to the decadent West, the citizen's needs are met: health care, food, shelter, security. All one must offer in exchange are work and loyalty to the State. Leo Demidov is a believer, a former war hero who loves his country and wants only to serve it well. He puts contradictions out of his mind and carries on. Until something happens that he cannot ignore. A serial killer of children is on the loose, and the State cannot admit it. To admit that such a murderer is committing these crimes is itself a crime against the State. Instead of coming to terms with it, the State's official position is that it is merely coincidental that children have been found dead, perhaps from accidents near the railroad tracks, perhaps from a person deemed insane, or, worse still, homosexual. But why does each victim have his or her stomach excised, a string around the ankle, and a mouth full of dirt? Coincidence? Leo, in disgrace and exiled to a country village, doesn't think so. How can he prove it when he is being pursued like a common criminal himself? He and his wife, Raisa, set out to find the killer. The revelations that follow are jaw-dropping and the suspense doesn't let up. This is a debut novel worth reading. --Valerie Ryan
Product Description
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 his wife, 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.
Tom Rob Smith graduated from Cambridge in 2001 and lives in London. Child 44 is his first novel.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 86 more reviews...
 `There is no murder, only crimes against the State.' May 3, 2008
J. Cameron-Smith (ACT, Australia)
44 out of 60 found this review helpful
Mr Smith uses as his backdrop the Stalinist Soviet Union of the 1950s, combines elements of the real case of Andrei Chikatilo, and delivers an engrossing and impressive debut novel.
Leo Demidov, a decorated war hero, is unswervingly loyal to the State. The body of a young boy is found on train tracks in Moscow, and his family are convinced the child was murdered. Leo's superiors order him to ignore this information and, while he obeys, he senses there is more to the case.
Action moves quickly: combining elements of jealousy, suspicious paranoia and human survival where reality is defined and enforced by the State. In this atmosphere, Leo is disgraced and exiled to a distant town where more murdered children are discovered.
There are a number of layers to this story. While some aspects are predictable, it is the way in which Mr Smith combines the pieces which make this such an absorbing read. Who is the murderer, and how many children have been murdered? Will Leo, his wife Raisa, and their marriage survive? Along the way, this novel touches on both the best and the worst of humanity.
`To stand up for someone was to stitch your fate into the lining of theirs.'
I highly recommend this novel, and I look forward to reading more from Mr Smith.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Strong Debut Thriller Based on a Real Soviet Serial Killer April 29, 2008
A. Ross (Washington, DC)
34 out of 41 found this review helpful
I generally don't care for serial killer stories, I find that everyday "regular" crime holds plenty of drama and is much easier to connect with. However, the Soviet setting of this debut thriller intrigued me enough to dip into it for a few pages, and the writing on those first few pages swept me into the story very quickly. For the first 3/4, it's an excellent grafting of the serial killer genre onto the everyday horror of the early-'50s Stalinist era Soviet Union. Unfortunately, Smith succumbs to the thriller writer's temptation of having a huge plot twist toward the end, which unnecessarily sabotages what had been a grim and realistic story to that point. It's one of those twists that comes out of nowhere, and really doesn't serve much purpose other than as a "gotcha" moment -- the story could have worked just as effectively without it.
Other than this one vastly annoying flaw, the book is excellent. After a chilling prologue in the famine-devastated Ukraine of the 1930s (a famine engineered by Stalin, it must be noted), the story opens in 1953 Moscow, where we meet Great Patriotic War hero and militia officer Leo Demidov, as he pursues the interests of the state in tracking down its enemies. Smith takes plenty of time to build up the totalitarian setting, where fear and paranoia reigned, and reason was a luxury unavailable to the state. If you were a suspect, you were guilty, since the state did not make mistakes. The story focuses on Demidov, showing the privileges his family enjoys due to his position, and the precariousness of his position as a jealous underling plots to destroy him. (This underling is the weakest element in the book, as his hatred for Demidov is a critical catalyst several times in the story, but the motivation for it is far too one-dimensional.)
It isn't until 1/3 of the way into the book that the serial killer plotline starts to assert itself, and Leo begins to realize that the same killer might have struck hundreds of miles apart. It's also at this point that I realized that Smith was taking the case of the real-life Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo (aka "The Rostov Ripper") and moving it back in time a few decades. The killer's background, physical details, MO, and more are all based on the Chikatilo case. (I find it a little bit odd that while the "further reading" section at the end of the book makes a passing mention to a book on the Chikatilo case, Smith doesn't explain who Chikatilo was or just how directly he drew upon the case for the book. There have been several non-fiction books written about the case (such as Hunting the Devil), and two mediocre films based on it: Citizen X and Evilenko.) In any event, once Leo starts to suspect the existence of such a killer, he is severely hamstrung in his ability to do anything about it -- partly because the existence of such a madman is incompatible with the utopian ideals of the Soviet state. To admit such a killer would be to admit the imperfection of the state.
As Leo's star falls, he is also subject to a shock in his personal life which makes him question everything. Galvanized to find and kill the serial killer as an act of redemption, he manages to enlist some help even as he comes under further pressure from his nemesis. A classic trope of the thriller is that the hunter/truth-seeker becomes the hunted, and Smith pulls just such a maneuver off brilliantly. The book picks up momentum, and other than the unnecessary plot twist mentioned above, races toward the climactic showdown with great skill. It's an excellent debut novel, and should have wide appeal to fans of thrillers, the serial killer subgenre, and fans of Martin Cruz Smith.
 "One of the fundamental pillars of the new society: there is no crime." April 18, 2008
Mary Whipple (New England)
21 out of 25 found this review helpful
This non-stop train-ride of a crime thriller will seize your attention from the first twenty emotionally wrenching pages and keep you hanging on for dear life for the remaining four hundred pages. Set in Moscow in 1953, when Communism controlled every aspect of daily life, and government officials believed that "there is no crime," the novel recreates the turmoil in the life of a State Security Force official who begins, reluctantly, to question the "facts" before him. Leo Stepanovich Demidov, working for MGB (Internal Security), is drawn into an investigation of the death of a four-year-old, supposedly struck and killed by a train. The child's family believes he was murdered, but Leo conveys a not-so-subtle warning to them not to question the state's findings regarding the child's death.
Because each community certifies its own causes of death, Leo can only regard the death of this child as a single instance of a mysterious death. When he is relocated to a more remote village and discovers that there has been a similar death there, however, he begins surreptitiously to investigate. Always, he must hide his reasons for asking for information. He cannot afford to be labeled as a doubter--he has a wife and parents to protect. Soon he has created a map showing dozens of similar crimes.
As Leo is trying to identify a serial killer, he must also deal with internal politics within the security service, including his own demotion and loss of reputation. A fellow MGB officer will stop at nothing to bring him down. At the same time, however, Leo is still a party man, and he plays by the book in his other investigations, including the interrogation, beating, and eventual execution of two men he knows to be innocent victims of the system. Torture, the use of informants, constant spying on each other, and the manipulation of records, are public policy--"Terror protects the Revolution," the party believes.
Author Tom Rob Smith's accomplished debut novel is filled with carefully drawn and vivid characters, all of whom convey their complex personalities within the structure of their communist society. His creation of Moscow life feels realistic, and his inclusion of maxims which could be part of a communist handbook adds to the sense of realism--and horror. Comparisons with Martin Cruz Smith (one of my favorite mystery writers) are inevitable, and this novel is at least as good as the best of Cruz Smith. In some ways--notably his ability to recreate the emotional milieu of the communist society--he may be even more successful. Outstanding! n Mary Whipple
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"Cruelty was a virtue." May 4, 2008
E. Bukowsky (NY United States)
12 out of 19 found this review helpful
Tom Rob Smith's "Child 44" plunges the reader into the unspeakable horrors of life in the Soviet Union--a repressive dictatorship that spewed out propaganda built on lies and delusions, and rewarded both conformity and the betrayal of one's friends and family. The harrowing opening chapter takes place in 1933. Ukrainian villagers are facing famine as a result of Stalin's failed agricultural policies. The sick and starving inhabitants are reduced to eating insects in order to survive for one more day. A dying woman releases her beloved cat, praying that it escapes before it is hunted down for food. A ten-year-old boy named Pavel is elated when he spots the animal. He decides to capture it and bring it home to his mother, Oksana, but his plans go terribly awry.
Twenty years pass and the country is firmly in the grip of Stalinism. The protagonist, thirty-year-old Leo Stepanovich Demidov, is a member of the MGB, the State Security Force. He is a good-looking former military hero whose photograph was prominently featured on the front page of Pravda as a symbol of Russia's victory over the Germans. He is convinced that his job, which includes apprehending individuals suspected of espionage, springs from "the necessity of guarding their revolution from enemies both foreign and domestic...." The Soviet Union has become a place where any remark critical of government policy is punishable by arrest or even execution. Friends and neighbors routinely turn against one another; loyalty has become a rare commodity.
Leo's latest task is to look into the death of a four-year-old boy named Arkady, whose naked corpse was found on a railway line, his mouth stuffed with what appears to be dirt. The government has decided that this "was a tragic accident with no question of blame." Leo has been assigned this case because the boy's grieving father, Fyodor Andreev, one of Leo's subordinates, insists that his son was murdered. Leo tries to convince Fyodor to stop spreading wild rumors about child killers. Such unfounded speculation could undermine faith in Stalin's "perfect" society where crime no longer officially exists. Next, Leo, who is hopped up on amphetamines (prescribed by MGB doctors to keep him focused), pursues Anatoly Brodsky, a veterinarian suspected of being a traitor. Even though there is little hard evidence against Brodsky, Leo ruthless hunts him down, believing that it is "better to let ten innocent men suffer than one spy escape."
"Child 44" is a riveting portrayal of a ruthless and repressive regime--Orwell's "1984" brought to life. Leo has sold his soul to the devil, and his wife, Raisa, a refugee with a tragic past, despises him for it. Leo's archenemy is his second in command, the selfish and vicious Vasili Ilyich Nikitin, who would like nothing better than to catch him in a fatal error and take his place in the MGB hierarchy. Leo, who has been brainwashed to believe that "the survival of their political system justified anything," undergoes a gradual transformation. As a result of the horrors he has witnessed, his own immoral actions, and his wife's contempt for him, Leo begins to feel remorse for being "a player in a grotesque farce" and for blindly adhering to the commands of an insane political system. When Raisa is suspected of being a spy, Leo must make a choice. Should he denounce her and thereby save himself and his parents, or behave honorably in an attempt to regain his self-respect?
Smith's prose is masterful. His descriptive writing perfectly captures the dismal conditions that Stalin's catastrophic economic and social programs produced. He depicts Lubyanka, the MGB headquarters where those suspected of espionage and counterrevolutionary activity are confined, as a chilling edifice of hopelessness. The author states that "there was something about the building itself which made people uneasy, as though fear had been factored into the design....It was an assembly line of guilt." Most of the men and women who enter Lubyanka are tortured and made to sign false "confessions." Subsequently, they are shipped off to the Gulag or executed. Even children are not immune from punishment. Raisa's secondary school students are so afraid of authority that "discipline was never a problem.... Youth provided no protection. The age at which a child could be shot for their crimes, or their father's crimes, was twelve." Smith manages to infuse even such an innocuous activity as slumber with a feeling of terror. "It was four in the morning, arresting hour--the best time to seize a person, to grab them from their sleep. They were vulnerable, disoriented." What kind of human being takes such sadistic pleasure in exploiting the helplessness of ordinary citizens?
This is a wrenching and multifaceted work of historical fiction. It is also a powerful character study; an indictment of a paranoid dictator who destroyed millions while promising to create an ideal social order; a gripping tale of suspense in which Leo tracks a serial killer who has slain and mutilated dozens of children; and a touching story of a broken man's attempt to rediscover his conscience and redeem himself. In spite of an overly complicated plot and a conclusion that may be a bit too pat considering what has gone before, "Child 44" succeeds as a searing account of one of the most appalling eras in the annals of totalitarianism. It is also a tale of courage and self-sacrifice, of the willingness of a few to defy the odds and seek justice for those without a voice.
Warning for the faint of heart: "Child 44" is not for the squeamish, as it contains many disturbing scenes of graphic violence.
Stunning Book! May 26, 2008
Melvin Hunt (Cleveland,, Texas United States)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
During the days of the Stalin dictatorship the Soviet Union was protrayed as the worker's paradise. Everything was wonderful in the Soviet Union. This book gives you the realistic version of Stalinist Russia. Citizens can be sent to Gulags or the Lubayanka for expressing
pro western saying,possessing western books, or disloyalty toward the Soviet Union.
The hero in this book is Leo Demidov. He works for MGB the state security force. He is a true believer in the Soviet style. He lives in comfort and his parents live in comfort because of his position. There is
a serial killer on the loose in Russia. His victims are children. Their stomachs are removed and their mouths are filled with dirt. The state
refuses to acknowledge the existance of a serial killer in their country.
Leo tries to investigate the killer but is demoted from MGB and transferred to another posting. He still tries to investigate the killer and is arrested. After a stunning escape he continues to pursue the serial killer. He discovers a deep dark secret and the identity of the killer is shocking.
This is an outstanding book that you should take time to read. Its is
definitely a winner. I hope Tom Rob Smith has more books in the future.
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