So here we go with yet another handsome, photogenic, gifted young author whose debut novel has become a worldwide sensation, voted one of the 100 best thrillers of all time. Yes, I hate Tom Rob Smith... but it's impossible to hate Child 44. It's just too damned good.
Earlier this year I reviewed Sam Eastland's pre-WWII Soviet Union thriller, The Red Coffin, and confessed to my ignorance of Russian history. At the same time, I found the USSR made a fascinating setting for a thriller, a place where a climate of fear and paranoia exists even before any crime is committed and where every detective takes risks no westerner would ever face.
Set slightly later, in the early days of the Cold War, Child 44 tells the story of MGB State Security Office Leo Demidov, a man whose training tells him to make his heart cruel...
"Cruelty was enshrined in their working code. Cruelty was a virtue. Cruelty was necessary. Aspire to cruelty! Cruelty held the keys that would unlock the gates to the perfect State."
Leo believes in the work he does, believes the traitors and spies he hunts deserve everything they get for threatening the Communist way of life. Although not a heartless man, he has no choice but to accept that torture, exile, even execution is an everyday part of his job... though he is starting to wonder. His doubts grow when he finds himself on the trail of a serial killer whose long list of murders is being denied by his superiors. If Leo is to catch this killer, he must risk everything - his life, his wife, his parents, his freedom - but dark secrets from his own past compel him, and the murderer is the last person he would ever expect.
Thoroughly researched, Tom Rob Smith's novel creates a terrifying scenario of Cold War paranoia, poverty and brutality. There are times when the misery and hardship reach almost Dickensian extremes, such as the opening scene in which two starving children chase a scrawny cat, the first meat they've seen in months. Or Leo's first experience of a State orphanage...
"...the entire floor was covered with children all sitting cross-legged, pressed up against each other and trying to eat. Every child clutched a wooden bowl filled with what appeared to be a watery cabbage soup. However, it seemed only the eldest children had spoons. The rest either sat waiting for a spoon or drank straight from the bowl. Once a child had finished, they licked the spoon from top to bottom before passing it onto the next child."
...yet such descriptions only succeed in cranking up the tension and trepidation, making the pages turn even faster. I'm pleased to see a second novel featuring Leo Demidov is already in the shops and I'm looking forward to returning to his world. It's a cool place to visit from the comfort and safety of your armchair... but I'd bloody hate to live there.
