*Child 44

bc child 44

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

 

 

            I don’t know what’s scarier in this book, Stalinist Russia or a serial-killer killing children.  The author, Tom Rob Smith, created a work of fiction based on a real-life Ukrainian serial killer.  Smith came across a story about this serial killer while he was doing research.  The serial killer is believed to have killed more than 60 children between the 1970s and 1990.  Smith took this information and decided to write a fiction story and brought the serial killer to Stalinist Russia (1953) to introduce his audience to the oppressive communist regime.  This novel is an amazing undertaking for a first time novelist, and you find yourself in Communist Russia with no friends and absolutely no one to trust.

 

            This book will chill you and give you some sleepless nights, but it’s a good book for discussion.  It’s hard for us to realize living without freedom.  Whatever measure of freedom we enjoy as Americans is always up for debate, but to have absolutely no freedom is unimaginable. 

 

            Leo Demidov, Smith’s protagonist, ignores any contradictions in his job as a leader in the State Security Force (MGB).  He loves his country and has served her well in his current position and also as a war hero.  Finally, something in his job triggers a stronger instinct than towing the line and being a party player.  Leo has discovered children being killed and his superiors insist that he is mistaken.  There are no murders in communist Russia and certainly no serial killers.

 

            So, we follow Leo’s attempt to find and bring to justice this horrific serial killer sidestepping his superiors along the way.  Unfortunately for the children and for Leo and his wife, the authorities turn on Leo and what follows is unbelievable.  Could this really happen?  It could and it did. 

 

            This is no a “lite” read and it allows the audience to witness ever so briefly what it must have been like to live in such oppressive regime.  Unfortunately, so many people in the world live under this type of oppression.  It is a scary wake-up about justice systems and political regimes and good for discussion.

 

 

Rating: 8

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