quippe | Entries tagged with tom rob smith

The 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.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

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 Blurb On The Back:

When fear silences a nation, one man must speak the truth.

The Soviet Union, 1953.

Stalin's iron grip is at its tightest, enforced by the Ministry of State Security - a secret police force whose brutality is no secret at all. Under its regime, people are commanded to believe that crime simply does not exist.

But when the body of a young boy is discovered on train tracks in Moscow, Officer Leo Demidov - a war hero, utterly dedicated to the Ministry - is surprised to hear that the boy's family is convinced it was murder. Leo's superiors order him to ignore this and he is obliged to obey. But something in him knows there is more.

Sensing his doubts, the Ministry threatens Leo, giving him no choice but to turn his back on his once-beloved Party. Disgraced, exiled with his wife Raisa to a town deep in the Ural Mountains, Leo realises that the crime he helped cover up in the capital has happened here too.

The murder of another child.

Risking everything, Leo and Raisa will pursue a horrifying killer - even if doing so makes them enemies of the State ...

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

A great concept is let down by poor execution and very poor characterisation. Although the period of history is fascinating and provides a great deal of scope for truly thrilling crime drama, without believable characters and a credible plot, it will never fulfil its potential.