The Book Tower

Call me unusual, but I found Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44 perfect summer reading. Although large and cumbersome, the hardback edition was always high on the list when packing our beach kitbag, and it always went in alongside the crocs, bucket and spade and water bottle. Smith’s debut novel has received a lot of attention for being part of the 2008 Booker longlist and, uncharacteristic for the Booker, being a thriller. This is also a novel that takes many thriller conventions (a serial killer, a wrong man chase) and wraps them up in the setting of 1950s Russia. The biting cold, the fear of being turned in by one’s own family, the torture and confession. Yes, it all made gripping summer reading.

Leo Demidov, a state security agent, is called in to pacify a family who are pleading that their young son has been murdered. The official line is that there was an unfortunate accident, and that murders are simply not commited in the neat and tidy climate of Communism. Leo is happy to go along with this, although the family concede through reasons of fear rather than reliable evidence. Leo returns to his day job, pursuing and apprehending the latest in a long line of suspect traitors. Although he pleads his innocence, the arrested man is routinely tortured for a confession and executed. What follows is one of the many fascinating twists of this novel, where one of the names provided by the tortured man is Leo’s own wife. Is she a suspect? Is Leo being punished for taking too much of an interest in the accidental death of the child? Is this the revenge tactics of a fellow officer? Leo is subsequently ordered to investigate his wife’s movements and what follows is a very well constructed and memorable episode, where he follows her on the network of Moscow’s underground, himself being followed by another agent. It’s pure Hitchcock, and I imagine that the film rights for this novel are already in someone’s eager hands. Just don’t cast Tom Hanks.

But what’s happened to the murder story? you may be asking , although Smith doesn’t rush with the serial killer thread and is more intent in the first half of the novel to establish character and setting. When Leo is demoted after failing to denounce his wife (although she remains at this stage an ambiguous character) and the Demidovs are relocated to a slum town outside of Moscow another victim is discovered, and Leo slowly finds out that the original death he was asked to sweep aside was a murder and was one of many. Child number 44. Cranked up to a reasonable tension, the novel then descends into more obvious territory, part James Bond escapes (a memorable one from a moving train, a less convincing one involving a car chase), part gut churning forensics (both in murder and interrogation victims). At times Smith is too keen to tie up all of the loose ends. He’s even cheeky enough to set things up for a sequel. But I found Child 44 above average for a thriller, and Smith just about gets away with the preposterous explanation for the sequence of murders and their connection with Leo. For me the book gained strength from the atmosphere of distrust and suspicion it creates, perhaps something of a cliché for a depiction of Stalinist Russia although he’s careful not to go too far with this. Leo Demidov is also interesting as the flawed lead, and Smith pulls the reader towards the plight of a man who’s done some terrible deeds, and made some awful decisions, in his past. What didn’t work so well for me was the frantic conclusion, although the final twist is delivered with some aplomb. It may be a ridiculous and far fetched premise, but Smith carries it off rather well.

So this was the novel that, albeit temporarily, broke my book buying ban. Some critics have been harsh, perhaps because of the Booker connection, but I really, really enjoyed this and recommend it for all. So there. It was a worthy relapse from the book buying, and I fully expect next year’s beaches to be awash with the paperback edition.