Child 44
Book description
OVER 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD
MOSCOW, 1953.
Under Stalin's terrifying regime, families live in fear. When the all-powerful State claims there is no such thing as crime, who dares disagree?
AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER IN OVER 30 LANGUAGES
An ambitious secret police officer, Leo Demidov believes he's helping to build the…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Child 44 as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Because I bought it on a whim, having not heard much about it, and honestly, I was in the mood for something set during the cold, and this cool book cover sold me. And sometimes the best serial killer novels burrow into the reader’s soul—mine, in this case—when you go into it not knowing it’s a serial killer novel! But this one was dark and perfectly cold and chilling and made me feel like I was right in the middle of Cold War Soviet Union. It’s a brutal world Rob Tom Smith creates here, but the MGB officer Leo Demidov…
From James' list on serial killers that made my skin crawl.
As you can guess from the last answer I hate totalitarianism, whether it comes from the right or left. Child 44 pits an average, decent man – who happens to be a Soviet detective in the Stalin era – against the idiocy that comes when politics interferes with justice, and tragedy results. If you think it’s tough when a US detective has to buck a Mayor, or city council member, think how much worse it would be if the impediment to justice is a whole national system.
From Bob's list on thrillers that affected the real world.
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