I don’t think I would have ever picked this book off the
shelf to read. It’s a crime novel set in the Soviet Union under Stalin’s rule.
For starters I don’t really know much about Russia and haven’t really come
across anything that involves Russia. It seems to me to be quite a secretive
country. I also don’t know much about Stalin other than that he is a baddy. So
this wouldn’t be the sort of book I would normally read. It was recommended to
me by someone I know. He likes a bit of crime fiction and spies and all that
sort of thing. I wasn’t convinced but he assured me that this book was worth
reading. I said I would read it, so I had to.
The book centres on Leo Demidov, a member of the MGB,
Russia’s elite police force. Except there are no crimes, so why do they need
the MGB? The son of one of his colleagues is murdered and Leo is sent round to
tell them that it was an accident, not murder. There are no murderers in
Russia. Only he gets moved to another area of Russia and he finds another child
murdered in exactly the same way. And another. Only the militia and the MGB are
covering it up. They are blaming these murders on the mentally ill and social
outsiders. They don’t think the killings are connected. There are no murderers
in Russia so there certainly won’t be any serial killers.
To begin with the book jumps around a bit but that is to set
the scene and to introduce you the characters and really the main character in
the book, Stalin’s Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is the real killer. It is
scary to think that people actually lived like that in the very, very recent
past. Stalin was like a kid in a candy store plucking people out of their lives
and putting them in Gulags or just killing them straight away rather than
leaving them to rot in prison. It seems as if you could never relax, you always
had to second guess everyone around you. Worst of all you had to second guess
yourself. How would you actions look to others? Would they be likely to report
you?
Tom Rob Smith has obviously done his research and that
really shows in the writing. He drags you in with Leo into the heart of
Stalin’s madness. Leo is an important character in that he starts off as a high
ranked officer in the MGB, arresting people and assuming that because their
name is on a list somewhere then they are definitely guilty. He doesn’t
question his orders, just believes that they are right because the State is
always right. When those views are shattered and he has to re-think every
belief he had, if he didn’t have a military mind set he might not have got
through it. He doesn’t really have time to process it. One minute he’s the
accuser, the next he’s the accused.
The book is well written, the descriptions are vivid and you
can picture what it must be like living in some of the toughest landscapes with
one of the most severe dictators watching your every move. I enjoy books that
teach you something whilst entertaining you and this was a real culture shock
for me. I’d never stopped to consider what those people went through. The book
is also full of action so it’s not all bleak and depressing. There are some
thrilling moments in there too. Thinking back, I don’t think any of the adult
characters laugh in the book. Even the children are very adult from a young
age.
A lot of the characters aren’t likable. Even the ones that
are you sometimes don’t like the decisions they make. Some of the reason that
Leo is likeable and you are interested in his story is his wife, Raisa. She
forces him to see her as an equal. She helps him solve and investigate the
murders. To begin with they aren’t close but by the end they realise that they
work well together. Without meaning to sound trite, she makes him more human
for the reader. As soon as he loses his position and is no longer likely to
have her or her friends arrested at a moments notice, she really comes into her
own and is a strong female lead character.
This book definitely surpassed my expectations and having
skimmed the first few pages of the sequel, which were at the end of this book,
I will be reading the sequel too. I’m not sure why I’m so put off by novels set
in some countries. It may be to do with the culture being so different, and me
having very little imagination, I’m not sure I’ll be able to relate or
understand the characters’ actions and feelings. Reading this has changed my
mind to some extent. I may be broadening my reading horizons.
Overall rating 5 out of 5.
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