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Books Related to Child 44 Tom Rob Smith - ISBN: 1847371264
I usually don't trust reviews - Rated
OK, I may be more cynical than most but it easy for authors / publishers to seed worthy reviews around the net. (Tripadvisor.com proves the point in a different medium!)
A "me too" is similarly of little value, but I have to break my rules and endorse George Rodger's succinct and well written review - it whet's the appetite without spoiling it.
Some author's require you to suspend your brain (Dan Brown; Matthew Reilly, anyone?) when their plots depend on wild and fanciful coincidences.
Child 44 roars along with only one ot two less believable - but still credible - "escapes". The serial killer hunt continues whilst painting a thought provoking picture of what life might have been like in the last year of Stalin's rule; abject povety for the general masses; necessary compromise; easy denunciation for personal gain.
The often written phrase - "I could not put the book down", was true; I read it cover to cover on Sunday (much to my wife's annoyance!).
Enjoy
superb thriller debut - Rated
I was amazed to see that this is the author's debut novel - the writing is very assured, and you know you're in the hands of a craftsman from the start.
The paranoid, shabby setting of the Soviet Union in the 1950s, still under Stalin's rule and still shadowed by the war, is beautifully done - as is the characterisation, the plotting, the sheer grip of the story.
Secret policeman and war hero Leo Demidov is Soviet Man incarnate - unswervingly loyal and unquestioning in his pursuit of the State's enemies - until a powerplay by a jealous subordinate threatens his life, and that of Raisa, his wife.
Thrown out of the MGB in disgrace and exiled to a bleak factory city in the Urals, Leo's world and beliefs are turned upside down. Then he discovers that in the Communist paradise that denies that crime is possible, there exists the worst criminal of all - a serial killer of children. He and Raisa must risk everything to pursue a terrifying killer, even if doing so makes them enemies of the State...
I understand that the author has written screenplays, and this thriller has a cinematic edge and suspense, wrapped up in very fine writing - it's one of the best I've read, and I can't recommend it highly enough. If you love thrillers, you won't be disappointed.
