Child 44

Child 44 was published with great critical acclaim, so much that I, someone who normally doesn't read suspense novels, was intrigued. The novel, written by a young recent graduate of Cambridge, deals with a MGB agent Leo and his wife Raisa during Stalinist Russia.

The fascist regime tests Leo's loyalty by giving him a choice that has the cruel magnitude of the story of Abraham: Denounce his innocent wife as a traitor, which will result in her execution, or he and his wife can live, but they will be stripped of their middle-class jobs and be exiled as peasants in the Russian rural countryside. Leo cannot denounce his wife, so she and he must languish in squalid conditions.

It is while living in the countryside that they become aware that there is a sociopathic serial killer on the loose. But what offends the State is not the serial killer; rather, the idea that crime could exist in their "utopia." The government covers up the crime and would rather live in denial as innocent children are killed, but Leo and his wife, the novel's heroes, have other plans.

The novel's tone, happily, avoids the cliché of most suspense novels. The Stalinist world is concretely rendered as are its cruel machinations, which some would call "Kafkaesque." Somehow this young author has written a masterpiece. Aspiring crime and suspense novelists, and even published ones, have good reason to be jealous. Highly recommended.

Child 44 is surprisingly well done - surprisingly in that it is a first novel, surprisingly that it is a thriller and I suppose I'm not used to the genre being particularly well written. I highly recommend it, and have sung its praises to many friends and family members. I would particularly recommend it if you like history/communist studies. It's good even if you don't, but the basic background I have in USSR-history only added to the reading experience for me.
The strongest aspect of Tom Rob Smith's work is the development of the environment of Soviet Russia under Stalin and the tensions between the ideals and the reality. This work of fiction is very well researched and Smith has an excellent grasp on life in Soviet Russia and the inner workings of the Communist party. The main character, a KGB war hero, is faced with the deterioration of everything that he has believed in all his life. This conflict, not the murder mystery itself, is what makes this novel great.

As a murder mystery, it has its flaws. Several readers have already stated their disappointment in the ending. While I don't share their disappointment, I don't think that the murder mystery itself was particularly well established. In particular, I don't think the connection between the murder and the murders was well defined. The murders themselves, the profile of the serial killer (the serial killer as a character is probably Smith's weakest example of character development), and Leo's quest to solve it seems like an afterthought. In a lot of ways, it seems like Smith got so caught up in Stalinist Russia that he forgot that what he was writing was a murder mystery. Regardless - Smith's development of a fictional Soviet Russia places his work as a piece of a literature well above most mainstream murder mysteries that you will find.

I look forward to his next novel, because I think that the disconnect that I discussed is something that will improve with experience and I have nothing but high expectations for Tom Rob Smith's future work.

I stopped reading this book after the first 80 pages or so because it felt like a million other detective books I have read in the past. After months of being left on the shelf, and not being able to find something else to read, I decided to give it a second chance and I am so glad I did. While it is not perfect, and some of the situations the characters are put in are far fetched, the story itself is very engrossing. The characters are well developed and the history of Stalin's Russia is fascinating. If you are looking for a fast and easy read, I would recommend this book.

I don't bother with reading fiction much; it usually takes too long. I checked this book out on a whim, and I was glad I did.

I'm an American born in 1972, so I have no idea what it must have been like to live in Communist Russia. If even half the things in this book are accurate depictions of everyday life during that era, I could never live there. Mr. Smith, almost from the get-go, makes the fear and paranoia of that era almost palpable; most decisions are based not out of any desire beyond living to see the next day, and the paralyzing inability for independent action boggles the mind. It is these things, more than anything else, that make this book worth reading.

I hope this gets made into a movie, because I would certainly see it.

Impossible to put down. I've given the book to five people who have had the same reaction. Bought the book for my husbands Kindle he had the same reaction. I won't mention any plot facts as each action leads to another element of the story. A must read for historical fiction or simple mystery lovers.