A Journey into Psychological Terror under the Stalinist Regime

"Child 44" is a thriller book written by Tom Rob Smith.

It is a book that is different from the other thriller novels.

Tom Rob Smith creates a brilliant story that draws not only from his imagination but also from reality.

Atmosphere and main themes

The novel is pervaded by a sense of fear, psychological terror, as if the protagonists were constantly moving on an ice sheet where only one wrong move could be fatal. The strengths are therefore the setting and the emotions that the author manages to infuse in the reader describing it. The protagonist, Leo, is faced with numerous travels throughout the plot. But the most important journey is what it will do in itself. You will find yourself asking questions that you never had, to have doubts about the System that for years has defended it fiercely.

Plot:

Initial plot

In 1933, in Russia, two children left home to hunt a cat. They are willing to get some food. But one of them will never come home again. Twenty years later, under the Stalinist regime, Leo Demidov is a respected officer of the MGB, the State Police. Faithful law-abiding servant of the system, accustomed to taking drugs to stay full of physical forces during an investigation, Leo is accustomed to working according to the dogma dictated by Stalin, without thinking too much, keeping as detached and cruel as possible. Crime in Russia does not exist, as there is never an unresolved case. In any case, the important thing is to close the case. The police for any crime, in the absence of a guilty plea, arrives to blame marginalized and reckless, or uncomfortable people who can not prove their innocence, anyone who is fit to blame for a crime that can not possibly remain unpunished.

Conflicts and doubts

When the son of a fellow Leo is found dead, the family suspects it is a murder, he believes the child was spotted in the company of a man shortly before dying. Leo, commissioned by superiors, is the case. But in the life of Leo, the unthinkable happens. Raisa, her beautiful wife, gets into the police target accused of being a spy. Meanwhile, the children found dead grow, the ritual is always the same. In Leo's head, there is doubt. Toward the state and its crazy idea of justice, towards itself and its ideals, to the presence of a possible serial killer that the Party can not and should not exist for the Party. Now you have to decide where to stand.