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134 of 145 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
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.
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50 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Debut novel - an author's unique twist!, July 6, 2008
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.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Ultimately disappointing, December 23, 2008
Please read other reviews for a synopsis of the story. The first third of Child 44 is an extremely engaging read that graphically depicts the psychological torment of life in late Stalinist Russia. Mistrust is the common currency of virtually any social interaction including the intimacies of family and friends. Whether Tom Rob Smith's descriptive powers are more the result of an extremely fertile imagination or thorough research, this reader was quickly drawn into that frightening totalitarian world so grimly portrayed. The novel unfortunately becomes increasingly concerned with the suddenly enlightened and obsessed hero's quest to win over his estranged wife while finding the serial killer who is the author of countless murders of young children. The implausiblity of the story and of much of the action increases exponentially as Leo's search heads towards its climax. What had initially kept me up past my bedtime with excitement and anticipation became, if not a chore, an obligation worth seeing through to its less than satisfactory end.
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