Child 44

Starred review from June 30, 2008
Dennis Boutsikaris expertly conveys the fear and paranoia that permeates Smith's outstanding debut novel of murder in 1950s Stalinist Russia. Leo Demidov, decorated hero of WWII and an officer in Moscow's MGB (a forerunner of the KGB), refuses to denounce his wife as an enemy spy. He is subsequently demoted, disgraced and dispatched, along with his wife, to a backwater factory. A brutal murder with the same characteristics as one Leo was once forced to cover up convinces him that a serial killer is stalking Russian children. Using Russian accents to their full advantage, Boutsikaris infuses his characters' dialogue with a deep sense of downtrodden melancholia. His staid, deliberate reading captures the soul-numbing oppressiveness of life under a totalitarian regime, as well as one man's desperate fight against it in order to do what's right. A Grand Central hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 3).

Starred review from March 3, 2008
Set in the Soviet Union in 1953, this stellar debut from British author Smith offers appealing characters, a strong plot and authentic period detail. When war hero Leo Stepanovich Demidov, a rising star in the MGB, the State Security force, is assigned to look into the death of a child, Leo is annoyed, first because this takes him away from a more important case, but, more importantly, because the parents insist the child was murdered. In Stalinist Russia, there's no such thing as murder; the only criminals are those who are enemies of the state. After attempting to curb the violent excesses of his second-in-command, Leo is forced to investigate his own wife, the beautiful Raisa, who's suspected of being an Anglo-American sympathizer. Demoted and exiled from Moscow, Leo stumbles onto more evidence of the child killer. The evocation of the deadly cloud-cuckoo-land of Russia during Stalin's final days will remind many of Gorky Park
and Darkness at Noon
, but the novel remains Smith's alone, completely original and absolutely satisfying. Rights sold in more than 20 countries.

If life in Stalinist Russia seems hard to imagine, then reading CHILD 44 will only make it even more difficult to fathom. Smith's debut novel is the chilling story of Leo Demidov, a "true believer" and war hero who simply wants to serve his country. Faced with the reality that a serial killer of children is on the loose, Leo is conflicted, and eventually demoted and exiled. Leo never gives up his search for the truth, however, with astounding results. Dennis Boutsikaris's nuanced delivery, especially his deftly varied tones, adds significantly to the book's allure and, perhaps, makes this audio version more intense than mere written words. D.J.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine