The
Secret Speech
Sequel to Child 44
by Tom Rob Smith
Read by Dennis Boutsikaris
The prologue to this story takes place
in Stalinist Russia. Leo Demidov, whom we met in Child 44,
has been assigned to spy on a priest of hte Russian Orthodox Church,
named Lazar. Leo poses as a young monk, Maxim, studying under
Lazar. He even tries to seduce Lazar's wife, pleading with her
to leave her husband and go into seclusion with him. With Stalin
cracking down on religion, it will only be a matter of time before
Lazar is arrested, leaving his wife vulnerable. She refuses to
denounce Lazar, and both are sent to the gulags in Siberia.
Seven years later, Leo has left his job of spying on innocent Russian citizens. Now, he heads
the Soviet Union's only homicide division. Though the idea hadn't been well received, Leo has
solved the murders of fifty-three children. Now, he solves murders full time, quietly covering
them up, so the "perfect society" won’t have to admit that its "happy" citizens were so miserable
they killed each other. Then, those who served Stalin's murderous MGB receive a copy of the secret
speech Khrushchev gave denouncing Stalin's government as murdering thugs. And those named therein
begin to die.
This is another Tom Rob Smith masterpiece. As in his first novel,
Child 44, the suspense mounts with each event, and death
is just a breath away. The characters are fully human. They laugh,
cry, hurt, heal, love, hate, make mistakes, and grow wiser, sometimes
painfully. The settings are historically accurate, as is the political
climate of the time. The ending is not a totally happy one, and
there is plenty of room for several more stories about Leo and Raisa
Demidov and their two adopted daughters, Zoya and Yelena.
Reviews of other titles in this Trilogy
Child 44 [audio]
[book]
Secret Speech [audio]
[book]
Agent 6 [audio] [review]
|
The Book |
Hachette
Audio |
May
19, 2009 |
Unabridged
Audio book / 10 CDs |
9781600245763 |
Suspense
Thriller |
More
at Amazon.com |
NOTE: Contains violence, profanity |
The Reviewer |
Jo
Rogers |
Reviewed
2009 |
|