Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

 

Leo Demidov is a war hero in the Soviet Union.  After the war, he joined the security office where he tracks down traitors for the state.  He knows that the men and women he brings in face execution or a long stay in the various gulags but he is a true believer in the state and thinks he is doing good.  He is married to Raisa who is a teacher and whose entire family was killed during the war.

But all of that won't save you if you have an enemy with influence and Leo does.  His subordinate wants Leo's job and he convinces their superior to set Raisa up as a traitor just to see if Leo will be true to the state over his personal love for her.  Leo fails the test and the two of them are demoted and sent to a small village hours away.

Before Leo left the security service, one of his jobs was to convince a family that their small son had not been murdered but had been hit by a train.  When he gets to the new town, he finds out that there have been child murders there as well, and as he investigates, he realizes that the one in Moscow was the forty-fourth victim.  All the cases have been closed with the blame being put on those the state wants to get rid of, homosexuals, those with mental issues, those suspected of various crimes.  But Leo realizes that this is the work of one man.  To even investigate is to commit treason against the state as they have closed the cases, but Leo knows if he is not caught, the murderer will continue.  Can he find the killer?

This was Tom Rob Smith's debut novel and it received many awards including a Booker nomination.  The author went on to write two more novels that featured this environment.  Readers will learn how bleak the Soviet Union was after the war and how everyone lived in fear of being arrested and accused of being a traitor.  Friends were pitted against friends, family against family.  The entire organization was corrupt with those in favor being given material goods and influence while always balancing on a thin line.  The identity of the murderer is another shock in this novel.  This book is recommended not only for mystery readers but for historical and literary fiction readers as well.