Child 44

Outstanding book. I couldnt possibly say enough good things about this one!

For a 1st time author, Tom Rob Smith hit a grandslam with "Child 44".

"Child 44" is loosely based on the real life Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo (The Butcher of Rostov) who actually killed around 52 women and children.

The storyline in "Child 44" is completely made up, by that I mean it isnt the actual story of Chikatilo, but a fictional one based off his murders.

Awesome suspense, great action, great characters!!

The way he ties everything together at the end is amazing, you'll think you have some things figured out and realize you didn't, later in the book you'll start thinking you know the ending and you won't even be close!

Producer Ridlely Scott has already purchased the rights to the film for this book, cant wait to see this one on the big screen!

Great, great read, highly recommended to all & especially to fans of David Benioff's "City of Thieves"!

I keep waiting for the world to wake up and figure out that this deserves to be a Top 10 best seller. I can't imagine a more engrossing debut novel.

Leo Stepanovich Demidov is a member of the MGB, the State Security Force for the Soviet Union and one of MGB's top investigative detectives. When it comes to loyalty, Leo is the most loyalists of men. He serves his country well and for that he is rewarded handsomely. In a country where any talk of disloyalty whether it be from reading a book or talk of being a traitor, can be punishment by death.

Suddenly Leo finds himself in a moral situation. He is put in charge of investigating his wife, Raisa. Accusations have been made against Raisa saying she is a traitor to her country. Leo now has to make a choice whether he turns his wife in like a good agent or stand up for him and his wife. The choice is obvious. Leo gets demoted to the lowest of lows when he is sent away to be part of the militia. His duties now consist of him cleaning prisoner's cells. When the body of a fourteen year old girl is found with her mouth filled with dirt and her intestines ripped out, Leo believes this was no accident but indeed a murder. He starts investigating and what he discovers is more heinous than anything Leo could imagine.

I kept seeing Child 44 showing up everywhere on the web. People were saying good things about this book. I am proud to say I too can't stop saying wonderful things about Child 44. This can only be achieved by an author like Tom Rob Smith. Mr. Rob Smith fused this book with such raw emotions of love, loyalty, loss, and trust. When you take a character like Leo, who experiences all of these emotions at the same time you end up with something truly amazing that will leave readers talking about Child 44 for a long time to come. I know I will. Child 44 is Tom Rob Smith's first novel. He should be proud of it. I give this book five stars and if I could give it more I would. I anxiously await his next novel.

On November 22, 2008 Ukrainians in Kiev, Ukraine marked the anniversary of a 1932 famine, known as Holodomor (Death by Hunger), in which upwards of 3.5 million Ukrainians starved to death. That famine serves as the prologue for Tom Rob Smith's novel "Child 44". In that prologue two young Ukrainian children are sent out by their mother to scavenge for food. The scavenger hunt has terrible consequences for both brothers. The story then jumps ahead twenty years, at the end of Stalin's long reign, and introduces us to State Security Force (MGB) office Leo Demidov. Leo is a war hero and, by all accounts, a dedicated and competent police detective. A child of one of Demidov's colleague is found dead near some railroad tracks. The MGB rules it an accidental death. The family insists it was murder. The rest of the novel takes us on Demidov's reluctant journey, one that convinces him that not only was the child murdered but that the victim was but one of many at the hands of what will later become known as a serial murderer.

The plot develops along two parallel tracks (pun intended): Demidov's investigation and the bureaucratic obstacles placed in the way of that investigation. The MGB and the entire collective weight of the USSR can not nor will acknowledge the existence of a `serial killer'. That is politically and practically impossible in a nation well on its way to being a worker's paradise. Demidov must deal not only with a smart and sociopathic murderer but with a system that will not tolerate the investigation of something that it does not accept can exist.

Child 44 works pretty well. The story, based loosely on the story of the USSR's first acknowledged serial killer, seems to get the atmospherics just right. The bureaucracy and vicious plotting by and among Demidov's colleagues also has a realistic feel. Smith keeps the plot bubbling and manages to reveal just enough detail to keep the reader guessing. Although some elements of the outcome are quite predictable given the book's prologue he does manage to introduce enough twists at the end to make most readers a little surprised by some of the climactic events of the novel.

All in all Child 44 was a satisfying thriller. The writing could have been more polished in places. Sometimes Smith delves into some formulaic descriptions of some characters in the story and sometimes he can present an exciting event in a tone that may be just a bit too breathless. However, since the book is more plot-driven than `literary'-driven I think those minor flaws are easily overlooked. So, four stars for those looking for a thriller with an international flavor.
L. Fleisig

Smith's title was recommended to me by a retired NCO, who like me,is fascinated by the excesses of totalitarian governments. He could not put the book down, he said. Well, I could, having extended family whose ethnic base was murdered off by the millions in the Ukraine. The cleansing of the population went on full bore,and we did not care,because they had no oil we could steal. I took Mr. Smith's tome more personal than a mere work of fiction. Then, there was my mother-in-law, who sent her relatives in Russia packages of army blankets and coffee, as if the commies would not steal whatever they wished and as if our own Uncle Joe McCarthy would not add her to his list as somone else who should be marched off to an American Gulog. But, as the story goes, Leo relentlessly pursed a hideous serial killer of children the state denied existed. And, I will not even mention the fantastic coincidence in the final chapters, or the killer's "motivation." And, then, the book ends happily ever after... Incredible!!! Now, as an allegory, suppose a country suspended its citizens' constitutional rights with some chuckled faced law such as the Patriot Act. Suppose the public is disarmed. Suppose education is taken over by No Child Left Behind nincompoops. Then, how much different will our position be than that of Leo's?