Goodreads synopsis: 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.
My rating: 5 stars.
Content warnings: R. Violence, sometimes gruesome, some swearing, one sex scene (not graphic).
Thoughts: I was excited and nervous to reread this story when it came up. Excited because I remembered it being really good, but I also know my memory has lied about a lot of things I read a while ago, so there was no telling.
That was unfounded. The story was still incredible.
The plot does take a while to get going, and it can be a little dense before things start actually happening. That could make it difficult to get into. But the information is interesting, and it sets the stage very well for what kind of world Soviet Russia was, especially for those less familiar with the setting.
But once the story does get going, it doesn't let up until it's over. The foreshadowing is so clever, and there's enough that the twists make sense, but not too many that it's annoyingly easy to figure everything out before it's revealed. It's one of the few books that genuinely surprised me with something, and on a second read it was very interesting to be able to analyze how story elements were used for the build up.
It was a book that was maybe even better reading a second time through. Definitely worthy of the reread, and it kept its spot firmly as an amazing mystery/thriller and solid work altogether.
That was unfounded. The story was still incredible.
The plot does take a while to get going, and it can be a little dense before things start actually happening. That could make it difficult to get into. But the information is interesting, and it sets the stage very well for what kind of world Soviet Russia was, especially for those less familiar with the setting.
But once the story does get going, it doesn't let up until it's over. The foreshadowing is so clever, and there's enough that the twists make sense, but not too many that it's annoyingly easy to figure everything out before it's revealed. It's one of the few books that genuinely surprised me with something, and on a second read it was very interesting to be able to analyze how story elements were used for the build up.
It was a book that was maybe even better reading a second time through. Definitely worthy of the reread, and it kept its spot firmly as an amazing mystery/thriller and solid work altogether.
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