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Child 44 Paperback – 19 Feb. 2009
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length480 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPocket Books
- Publication date19 Feb. 2009
- ISBN-101847391591
- ISBN-13978-1847391599
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Product description
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Pocket Books (19 Feb. 2009)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 480 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1847391591
- ISBN-13 : 978-1847391599
- Best Sellers Rank: 842,775 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 89,070 in Thrillers (Books)
- 96,384 in Mysteries (Books)
- Customer reviews:
About the author
Born in 1979 to a Swedish mother and an English father, Tom Rob Smith's bestselling novels in the Child 44 trilogy were international publishing sensations. Among its many honours, Child 44 won the International Thriller Writer Award for Best First Novel, the Galaxy Book Award for Best New Writer, the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the inaugural Desmond Elliot Prize. Child 44 is now a major motion picture starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace and Gary Oldman.
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Enter Leo, a member of the security forces, who due to circumstances, is down-graded to a member of the militia, who essentially becomes a one-man murder squad, staking not only his life, but the life of his wife and parents on his quest to track down the supposed killer.
I found this a real page turner from start to the very end, despite, extremely uncomfortable reading about the way in which the Soviet State treated its inhabitants within the last 100 years. There is a real sense of terror in doing anything which the state may frown upon, whilst the descriptions of the cells in Lubyanka are terriying, as is the camphor oil treatment handed out to certain individuals. Characters are well developed and almost believable, although our hero is a bit of a "Jack Bauer", seemingly undefeatable, despite numerous attempts by the Soviets to bring him down (indeed Smith states that 24 was an inspiration for his writing).
Highly recommended, if you are able to stomach uncomfortable scenes.
So convincing and vibrant, in fact, that I found myself skimming over some of the more grotesque descriptions of torture and murder - If you have a delicate stomach this might not be the book for you. But these descriptions add to the drama of this gritty story, and further authenticates it by the knowledge that it might not be very far from what actually happened at the time.
The characters are easy to like and easy to recognise, easy on the eye and human enough to allow for some hero-identification. The dashing hero Leo is the perfect bad-guy turned good and his beautiful wife Raisa does a very convincing ice-queen thaw-out.
And in the midst of this desperate scramble for justice and flight from prosecution, is a very sweet, if perhaps a tiny bit rushed, love story.
A few things bothered me; Quite often the narration loses it's flow and becomes a little clumsy and trite. Leo's introspection was sometimes a little boring and overstated what was already clear, and the ending was a little too rushed and a little incongruous compared to the rest of the book - But all minor details which did not stop me from devouring this book in a matter of days.
We have suspense, realism, romance, psychology, a handsome hero, and a breathless chase all neatly together in one very good book which I am willing to bet will be turned into a film in the not too distant future!
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel in which it is clear that the author has done his research and well written. I would recommend it to anybody who likes an easy to read thriller particularly if you are interested in stories set in communist Russia in the era of Stalin and Khrushchev.
I just found out that this is the first in a trilogy involving Leo Demidov, the main character, the second being The Secret Speech and the third being Agent 6 .
On the strength of how much I liked the first book, Child 44, I have just purchased the final two in the trilogy.
Note on the Kindle version: Great! No proplems whatsoever.