The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith
Apr. 13th, 2009 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
One man has broken the silence. Now a nation will turn on those it feared.
The Soviet Union 1956: after Stalin’s death, a violent regime is beginning to fracture. It leaves behind a society where the police are the criminals, and the criminals are innocent. Stalin’s successor Khrushchev pledges reform. But there are forces at work that are unable to forgive or forget the past.
Former MGB officer Leo Demidov is facing his own turmoil. The two young girls he and his wife Raisa adopted have yet to forgive him for his part in the murder of their parents. They are not alone. Leo, Raisa and their family are in grave danger from someone with a grudge against Leo. Someone transformed beyond recognition into the perfect model of vengeance.
Leo’s desperate, personal mission to save his family will take him from the harsh Siberian Gulags, to the depths of the criminal underworld, to the centre of the Hungarian uprising – and into a hell where redemption is as brittle as glass.
Set 3 years after Child 44, Leo now heads a secret homicide department with his friend, Timur Nesterov. Although he and Raisa live in a smart apartment with Elena and Zoya, their adopted daughters, Zoya cannot forgive Leo for his part in the death of her parents and her hatred is poisoning the family.
When the new premier, Kruschev, orders the publication of a speech that he made criticising the actions of the government under Stalin, it triggers a series of murders – the victims all people who participated in Stalin’s repression of the innocent. The deaths force Leo to confront his first arrest as an MGB agent, where he infiltrated and betrayed an Orthodox priest, Lazar. Soon Leo’s past will put him and his family in danger as a figure from Leo’s past seeks revenge, sending him on a daring mission to a Siberian gulag and then onto Hungary, where an uprising is brewing.
Whether you enjoy this book depends on whether you can ignore the way Smith plays fast and loose with historical facts and make some rather ludicrous plot jumps. The set pieces are slick if improbable and Smith keeps the action coming.
As with Child 44, the problem lies with Leo who never convinces as having once been a ruthless MGB officer given his naivety and the ease with which he is manipulated by others. His need for redemption is slightly more satisfying, particularly his desperation to receive some kind of forgiveness from Zoya. Raisa gets less time on the page and as a result, her relationship with Zoya, which is so pivotal to the plot, fails to fully engage. Zoya herself is something of a stock character and although her hatred and rage is well portrayed, the motivation for some of her actions is superficial – particularly her relationship with Malysh and the ease with which she leaves Elena. Thankfully Leo’s nemesis, Fraera, is dynamic, cunning and ruthless, utterly devoted to their cause and the leader of a criminal (vory) gang – Fraera’s presence lends the novel a much-needed spark.
Smith’s ambitious in trying to weave political machinations into a historical context, but the complexity prevents it from being convincing and the ending, while leaving the way open for a continuation, feels a little half-hearted. This isn’t a bad book, but it’s not great either. The best that can be said is that it’s an okay read.
The Verdict:
I enjoyed this more than Child 44, mainly because I was able to let go of some of the historical inaccuracies. It’s not an awful book, but I’ve read better historical thrillers and some of the leaps of logic that Smith comes up with were a little too much to stomach.
The Soviet Union 1956: after Stalin’s death, a violent regime is beginning to fracture. It leaves behind a society where the police are the criminals, and the criminals are innocent. Stalin’s successor Khrushchev pledges reform. But there are forces at work that are unable to forgive or forget the past.
Former MGB officer Leo Demidov is facing his own turmoil. The two young girls he and his wife Raisa adopted have yet to forgive him for his part in the murder of their parents. They are not alone. Leo, Raisa and their family are in grave danger from someone with a grudge against Leo. Someone transformed beyond recognition into the perfect model of vengeance.
Leo’s desperate, personal mission to save his family will take him from the harsh Siberian Gulags, to the depths of the criminal underworld, to the centre of the Hungarian uprising – and into a hell where redemption is as brittle as glass.
Set 3 years after Child 44, Leo now heads a secret homicide department with his friend, Timur Nesterov. Although he and Raisa live in a smart apartment with Elena and Zoya, their adopted daughters, Zoya cannot forgive Leo for his part in the death of her parents and her hatred is poisoning the family.
When the new premier, Kruschev, orders the publication of a speech that he made criticising the actions of the government under Stalin, it triggers a series of murders – the victims all people who participated in Stalin’s repression of the innocent. The deaths force Leo to confront his first arrest as an MGB agent, where he infiltrated and betrayed an Orthodox priest, Lazar. Soon Leo’s past will put him and his family in danger as a figure from Leo’s past seeks revenge, sending him on a daring mission to a Siberian gulag and then onto Hungary, where an uprising is brewing.
Whether you enjoy this book depends on whether you can ignore the way Smith plays fast and loose with historical facts and make some rather ludicrous plot jumps. The set pieces are slick if improbable and Smith keeps the action coming.
As with Child 44, the problem lies with Leo who never convinces as having once been a ruthless MGB officer given his naivety and the ease with which he is manipulated by others. His need for redemption is slightly more satisfying, particularly his desperation to receive some kind of forgiveness from Zoya. Raisa gets less time on the page and as a result, her relationship with Zoya, which is so pivotal to the plot, fails to fully engage. Zoya herself is something of a stock character and although her hatred and rage is well portrayed, the motivation for some of her actions is superficial – particularly her relationship with Malysh and the ease with which she leaves Elena. Thankfully Leo’s nemesis, Fraera, is dynamic, cunning and ruthless, utterly devoted to their cause and the leader of a criminal (vory) gang – Fraera’s presence lends the novel a much-needed spark.
Smith’s ambitious in trying to weave political machinations into a historical context, but the complexity prevents it from being convincing and the ending, while leaving the way open for a continuation, feels a little half-hearted. This isn’t a bad book, but it’s not great either. The best that can be said is that it’s an okay read.
The Verdict:
I enjoyed this more than Child 44, mainly because I was able to let go of some of the historical inaccuracies. It’s not an awful book, but I’ve read better historical thrillers and some of the leaps of logic that Smith comes up with were a little too much to stomach.
