Child 44 | 
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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.
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
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Customer Reviews:
• Brilliant Debut Novel! 06 September, 2008
One of the best books I've read in a long time. Could not put it down or stop reading (so good I had to leave it in the car overnight to keep myself from staying up all night).
The twists and turns caught me like a string around my ankle and the author kept pulling me in.
I understand the film rights have been sold to Ridley Scott. Excellent book - 5 stars.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3M571CD4JP0TX
• Really Good Story Writer 01 September, 2008
this was a superbly written novel of a true tale of mayhem.....bought a copy for a friend since i wanted to keep my own........would like to read more from this author in future!
- Reviewed by customer ID: A22QDV7CNBR11C
• A Literary Whodunnit 06 September, 2008
This thriller is one of the most hyped books this summer. The story follows one man's hunt to catch a serial killer of children. In typical thriller fashion, different chapters reveal what is happening with the protagonist, the killer, and occasionally victims or other side characters. Most chapters end with a cliff hanger before checking in with another character in the next.
Where Child 44 differs from the usual Safeway novel thrillers is in its setting - the story takes place in a Soviet Union ruled by Stalin. Clearly the author did quite a bit of research into that era, and he does a good job of showing the horrors and difficulties of life during that time. Much of the novel is spent developing the characters and setting - the murder investigations don't really rev up until the second half of the book.
Although the dialog is sometimes over-earnest and the who-dunnit aspect of the story is not very exciting, this book is still worth a read because of the dark but fascinating world and time it draws the reader into. This book should appeal to mystery/thriller fans, as well as those who enjoy historical fiction.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3NYTSAEPZDJ7Y
• Serial Murder In The Worker's Paradise 07 September, 2008
A young boy named Arkady is found murdered on the rails in Moscow. The family is visibly upset and it's MGB officer Leo Demidov's job to assure the family it wasn't murder. It couldn't have been, even though the body had been mutilated, because the year is 1953 and this is Soviet Russia under Stalin, the Worker's Paradise and the world knows there is no murder in Paradise. Just ask anyone in the government, they'll tell you.
Leo Stepanovich Demidov is an officer in the MGB (the secret police). He's a tough veteran of WW II who is in top physical shape, mentally though, we might think he's not so pure. He's a product of the system, has arrested countless comrades for crimes they haven't committed, tortured them before they'd been executed. In Leo's defense, he believes in the Worker's Paradise, where police interrogation consists of scratching away at innocence until guilt is revealed. If arrested you're guilty until proven innocent and nobody is ever proven innocent, because the scratching never stops.
However, Demidov's belief in the system is tested and shaken when he's ordered to spy on his school teaching wife Raisa. In the end he doesn't betray her. Not happy, his superiors demote him and send him off to a small town in the Urals, where he learns about more mutilated dead children and he figures out there is a serial killer riding the rails of the Soviet Union.
Even though suspects have been arrested for the crimes, Demidov knows better and he goes in search for the killer and he won't be deterred, even with the MGB and all the powers of the State out to stop him in this thriller that grips right from the get go, sucks you in, glues your eyes to the pages and dares you to put the book down. This is not just a thriller, it's a primer on the Soviet Union under Stalin, not a nice place. Demidov's transformation from believer to sceptic to man on the run after a killer is a story that will not only keep you burning the midnight oil, it'll take you to a dreary, dangerous time and place you won't soon forget.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A33HIQR1X1G4GI
• Interesting Read :) 07 September, 2008
This book is set in the Soviet Union, around the 1950's during the end of Stalin's regime. I am not conversant with Russia's history, hence, the reason why the book did not catch my interest at first.
During this time, paranoia reigned the streets. Imagine a world where instead of presumption of innocence is the order of the game presumption of guilt becomes the norm. No matter what a citizen does, once the State thinks that he did something bad, he will be arrested and forced (meaning tortured by any means possible) to admit a crime (any crime, it does not matter what). That citizen would then be sentenced to up to 25 years in the Gulag or to face execution. Even when a citizen is innocent, the torture would be too much and eventually, he would break.
This is the backdrop of this novel. The main character, Leo, is a war hero for the State. He is a high-ranking official of the MGB and his first order of business was to convince a family that their child, Arkady, was killed in an accident. The family, however, believed that he was murdered. If the family continues their belief, all of them would be executed. No one disagrees with the State.
Because of his position, Leo's family lives in luxury - meaning they get an entire apartment to themselves and they have hot water. He has a wife and a very promising career. But things start turning around when Leo suddenly grows a conscience. Instead of arresting a man the State thinks did something bad, he investigated the person and allowed him to escape. He was eventually captured, but still, this mistake cost Leo not only his life, but his family, as well.
(Spoiler Alert - stop reading if you intend to read the book)
Leo was asked by the State to denounce his wife saying she was a spy. To this he refused and because of this, they were sent to exile in an unknown town. His parents were removed from their apartment and transferred to an apartment where 2 other families lived. In this apartment, there was no plumbing, no hot water and no toilet (only a bucket).
When Leo arrived in that town, he was alerted about a murder that took place days earlier. The murder involved a girl whose belly was slashed open and her stomach cut out. She was completely naked. Her clothes were filed neatly 20 paces away from her body. Her mouth was filled with loose soil or bark or some kind of material and a string was attached to her ankle. Suddenly, Leo remembered what the family of Arkady told him. The murders were similar.
He then starts to investigate these murders, which the State had already solved and covered up. If he did this, he would be tried for treason. This is where his journey starts. This is also the moment where he and his wife start seeing each other as human beings and not just a way to protect themselves to survive.
After much investigation, he finds out that the killer has killed at least 44 children all over south Russia. But what he was not prepared for was to find out who the killer was.
It turns out that the killer was his own brother. And the task was to kill the murderer, his brother. His brother's only motive in killing was to make Leo come to him. Leo now had a very hard choice to make. But in the end, he killed his brother.
He was called a hero once again (this time, however, Stalin had died and Kruschev was the new leader). He got a promotion to which he declined and requested that he head a homicide division instead.
(spoilers end here)
The entire book was filled with suspense and thrillers. There was a part where they had to hide from the MGB and Leo knew how the MGB operated. So what they did was to attach themselves underneath the MGB's trucks and hold on until they were past the village.
There was also a part where they worked on escaping from the train. However, the train itself was built so that anyone who escaped would die. Apparently, at the endmost of the train, hooks were attached. Several hundreds of hooks, protruding at different angles in order to snatch any person's body sneaking underneath the train.
In the beginning, when Leo tried to catch someone, and that person, instead of giving up, drowned himself in ice-cold water (literally, the river was frozen but he managed to break a part of the ice and let himself be dragged). Leo followed suit and was about to lose oxygen when he was able to get hold of the prisoner, break the ice and get out.
The book is a must-read. I can't wait for the movie. Ridley Scott (director of American Gangster, Black Hawk Down, Gladiator and many more) is going to be directing this film. This should be something to look forward to.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2GAO2M7Y8U06H
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