7-3-09 Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith – Fiction

4 – An excellent thriller set in the Soviet Union in the 50’s.  Leo works for the MGB, the government run police force under Stalin.  He follows orders and arrests people regardless of his feelings toward them.  Leo falters in an investigation and makes an arrest later than advised.  For that he is punished by being assigned to investigate his wife as a spy.  His and his wife’s fates hang in the balance when he discovers that a case he was told was an accident truly was a murder.  Murder officially does not exist in Communist Russia because if everyone is equal why would there be murder?  As he investigates on his own he finds not only was that case a murder, it is just one of many.  A great look at the atmosphere of Stalinist Russia through the eyes of both the government and the people with a tense murder mystery thrown in.