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Soviet Official Faces A Catch-22 In This Cold War-Era Thriller

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By LARRY GANDLE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 8, 2008

"Child 44," by Tom Rob Smith (Grand Central Publishing, $24.95)

Leo Demidov is a member of the feared MGB, or State Security force, in Stalin's Soviet Union. He is a very competent, ruthless and powerful inspector with an aptitude for solving crimes.

He is also a well-respected military hero and married to a beautiful woman. With the perks that go with his job, life for Leo is as good as it gets in Soviet Russia. It is this well-structured and enviable life that comes crashing down when his wife is declared a spy, and Leo is asked to investigate her activities.

Anything short of proof of her guilt will not go well for Leo and his parents. Adding to the pressure of his current situation, Leo is haunted by the deaths of young children, who appear to have been killed by a serial killer.

Problem: The strict party line denies there are serial killers in the worker's paradise. If the party were proven wrong, its officials would not be happy. Nevertheless, Leo feels compelled to solve these crimes, no matter the cost.

Tom Rob Smith, in his debut effort, has given us a vivid glimpse into the lives of the Soviets under the Stalinist regime. It is a world based on fear and suspicion, where members of the society are almost always doomed to failure.

Thankfully, it is now only of historical interest. Yet, there is a sense of originality to the novel despite the setting, which many of us are familiar with, having lived through the Cold War.

The story is absorbing and the characters well fleshed out. Some of the printing and writing techniques are a bit unorthodox, such as dialogue written in italics without quotation marks, and points of view changing from one paragraph to another. These are not necessarily problems in that they were done intentionally and result in something of a unique style

In future works, I would hope Smith tightens up the plot and leaves out some or all of the lengthy, descriptive segments like the ones in this book that were pointless and only served to bulk up the number of pages.

We may not learn as much minutiae about the background of the story's characters, but the pacing would be greatly improved.

There is a lot of buzz in the publishing world about this book, and much of it is warranted. It is a worthwhile read for not only thriller fans but also for those who love a solid, all-encompassing historical novel that seems to nail an era that is thankfully long gone.

Larry Gandle of Tampa is a freelance writer.

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