Child 44 [Hardcover]

Tom Rob Smith (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 29, 2008

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Set in the Soviet Union in 1953, this stellar debut from British author Smith offers appealing characters, a strong plot and authentic period detail. When war hero Leo Stepanovich Demidov, a rising star in the MGB, the State Security force, is assigned to look into the death of a child, Leo is annoyed, first because this takes him away from a more important case, but, more importantly, because the parents insist the child was murdered. In Stalinist Russia, there's no such thing as murder; the only criminals are those who are enemies of the state. After attempting to curb the violent excesses of his second-in-command, Leo is forced to investigate his own wife, the beautiful Raisa, who's suspected of being an Anglo-American sympathizer. Demoted and exiled from Moscow, Leo stumbles onto more evidence of the child killer. The evocation of the deadly cloud-cuckoo-land of Russia during Stalin's final days will remind many of Gorky Park and Darkness at Noon, but the novel remains Smith's alone, completely original and absolutely satisfying. Rights sold in more than 20 countries. (May)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446402389
• ISBN-13: 978-0446402385
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.2 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (577 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #614,018 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tom Rob Smith graduated from Cambridge University in 2001 and lives in London. His first novel, Child 44, was a New York Times bestseller and an international publishing sensation. Among its many honors, Child 44 won the ITW 2009 Thriller Award for Best First Novel, The Strand Magazine 2008 Critics Award for Best First Novel, the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Tom invites you to visit his website www.TomRobSmith.com and follow @tomrobsmith on Twitter.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

184 of 196 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Strong Debut Thriller Based on a Real Soviet Serial Killer April 29, 2008

By A. Ross HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

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.

66 of 73 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Debut novel - an author's unique twist! July 6, 2008

By L. Quido VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Warning: Some spoilers in the review below.

Long a fan of "Citizen X" the HBO film about Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, who killed children at large in the Soviet Union from 1978-1990, I'd heard some buzz about "Child 44", but didn't read any reviews until I purchased the book.

The young British author, Tom Rob Smith, made my jaw drop with his version of historical fiction, because yes, Smith takes the tale of Andrei Chikatilo (who has been written about in true crime genre) and moves it BACK in time, keeping the tale somewhat intact but setting it in Stalinist Russia in the early 50's. The contrast is startling, because, by the 80's, near the end of the Cold War, the denizens of the USSR had been disillusioned by the "glory" of Communism and had spent decades poor, hungry, frightened of the state. Despite that, the hunt for Chikatilo in the 80's was funded and followed, somewhat as an afterthought, by the state.

In the 50's, with Stalin's grip on the nation--it's a worker's paradise in everything but reality. And the leader would never allow such crimes as murder to exist. And with this change of landscape, the author, with what must have been painstaking research of the times, heightens the suspense, creates a sense of absolute hopelessness, and puts the military hero tracking the killer in fear for his own life and those of his family.

Pursuing the killer, and refusing to denounce his own wife, Leo Demidov places his own career and life in jeopardy. In addition to the deft way in which the author moves from Leo's childhood to his present, from the killer to Demidov and back, and into the stark conflict that is Leo's life with his wife, Raisa, Smith doesn't give up his terse, descriptive style; of the forbidding Lubyanka, he writes:

"Its façade created the impression of watchfulness: rows and rows of windows crammed together, stacked up and up, rising to a clock at the top which stared out over the city as though it were a single beady eye. An invisible borderline existed around the building. Passersby steered clear of this imaginary perimeter as if fearful they were going to be pulled in. Crossing that line meant you were either staff or condemned. There was no chance you could be found innocent inside these walls. It was an assembly line of guilt".

Brilliantly conceived, and flawlessly executed, "Child 44" is the best book I've read so far this year.

54 of 64 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Tom Rob Smith Gets It Wrong December 12, 2012

By Il'ja

Format:Paperback

I'm willing to risk the good will of - apparently - the entire internet, in order to say that I really didn't enjoy "Child 44". Perhaps, largely because I have lived 'over here' for about twenty years. Sure, it's an argument from experience, but isn't that what "Child 44" purports, at least in part, to be? An argument drawn from historical experience?

I understand the fascination with the soviet experience, the good and the bad of it. I have been dealing with that fascination almost all my life - as a son of Slav parents who were not ethnically Russian, but who knew "the Soviet thing" in a real, experiential way. It's like a disease. It's something George Orwell talks about in his outstanding essay "the Prevention of Literature" when he stresses "the poisonous effect of the Russian MYTHOS on English intellectual life." We're all suckers for it. I believe that "Child 44" fails to treat that MYTHOS with any kind of serious consideration or respect.

I'm just one person, but books like Tom Rob Smith's (and David Benioff's even more laughable "City of Thieves") just tick me off. They unconsciously glamorize something that has no glamour. None. They legitimize it by trivializing it, if you see what I mean. A cartoon is much easier than a 12-part documentary on PBS, that's for sure.

Let's get something straight: I understand the role of fiction. And I'm no prude. I love a good murder mystery, a thriller, an espionage yarn filled with liars and LeCarre's 'seedy little men'. Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter books have a delicious horror and offer moments of outstanding lyricism. Read the first few pages of "Hannibal" (I think it's the third in the series) and tell me if the prose isn't deeply moving. The murders, the gore, in this story did not turn me off. They are a matter of record and fair game for a fictional treatment as much as anything else. But Smith's writing, its utter lack of subtlety, its ignorance of the nuance of soviet life, its tedious 'cause and effect' line of reasoning, its 'all or nothing' take on everything, its omnipresent melodrama, its historical distortions, and its tin ear for the Russian language...well, it all feels like a story a tourist who visited Moscow for a week would tell his family when he got back home to his solid homeland which boasts drivers who follow traffic laws, the presumption of innocence, and hot water on demand. Oh, and a homeland with NO SOVIET PAST peopled with the credulous who already believe in their hearts that Russians are, well, not quite up to snuff.

I'll just have to disagree with those who loved "Child 44", but I think - and just consider it - that if you have an interest in the real horror, the absurdity, the humanity, and the ache of that period, there are better options available to you. Solzhenitsyn, Grossman, Babel, Bulgakov, Akhmatova, Brodsky, and from perestroika to post-soviet - Pelevin, Tolstaya, Sorokin, and Dovlatov. They'll be harder to find, sometimes harder to read, but they'll talk about real things. Things that Tom Rob Smith is only guessing at. And to my reading anyway, guessing wrong.