But now he has reached the top of his state’s hierarchy. His suspicions were confirmed when Zhukov attempted to call an alleged psychiatrist friend of his for help, speaking in coded language Leo recognised from his MGB days. The embittered MGB agent forced Leo and Raisa on their knees, and was about to execute them before being fatally stabbed by Andrei. Leo was apprehended by Vasili, who took him to the Lubyanka for questioning. Upon seeing the photographs, Leo noted similarities in her injuries with those inflicted on Arkady Andreev. [38], Evading their pursuers, Leo and Lazar arrived safely in Moscow and met up with Fraera on the Bolshoy Krasnokholmsky Bridge. Accepting that this would likely have been the last time they ever saw each other, Stepan handed Leo a note containing information on his true origin, which Leo threw away on the train journey back without reading it. On returning to the Zinoviev residence, Leo watched as Vasili shot both Mikhail and his wife, striking his subordinate before he could do the same to Mikhail's daughters Zoya and Elena. This is the first novel in a trilogy featuring former MGB Agent Leo Demidov, who investigates a series of gruesome child murders in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. A politically-charged serial killer thriller set in 1953 Soviet Russia, “Child 44” chronicles the crisis of conscience for secret police agent Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy), who loses status, power and home when he refuses to denounce his own wife, Raisa (Noomi Rapace), as a traitor. Leo pursued and captured him, with both men nearly freezing to death in the lake's icy waters. Real-life serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, also known as “The Butcher of Rostov,” was convicted of murdering and mutilating 52 women and children in Soviet Russia in the early 1950s. [29], The next day, Leo met Major Grachev, who had replaced Major Kuzmin during an anti-Stalinist purge. Leo Demidov/Original Female Character(s) Leo Demidov/Reader; Leo Demidov; Self-Insert; Summary. Leo strangled Zhukov to death, aware that they had now been exposed. [22], This article is about the novel.

[30], A week later, Leo and Raisa went to Orphanage 12, where the two daughters of Mikhail Zinoviev, Zoya and Elena, were being housed and adopted them. A sumptuous period thriller encompassing themes of power, love, betrayal and murder, “Child 44” is novelist Tom Rob Smith’s fictionalized version of the grisly case that was met with resounding critical and popular acclaim upon publication in 1998. Desperate for advice, he turned to his parents, who recommended that he denounce his wife in order to save them. On 25 January, Pavel discovered a stray cat in a nearby wood, and attempted to catch it alongside his younger brother Andrei. Macqueen did state that the novel "remains a real achievement" and that it delivers "all the pleasures of a brilliant airport read". He revealed to Leo that Zoya was still alive and living with the vory in Budapest, Hungary, where they were trying to trigger an uprising among the population that would be thwarted by the occupying Soviet forces, further legitimising the Kremlin's position. * Copyright © 2020 INQPOP! [7], Around the same time, Leo was instructed by Major Janusz Kuzmin to escort noted American communist dissident Jesse Austin on a two day guided tour of Moscow, hoping to prevent him from seeing anything that would tarnish his favourable opinion of the Soviet Union.

During the journey, the ship collided with an iceberg, damaging the hull and inciting the prisoners to stage a mutiny. All rights reserved. Although they survived and managed to organise a flight to Moscow, the two were pursued by soldiers, unwilling to let them leave and spread the word over the appalling conditions in the gulags. [33] The two learned that Raisa was in critical condition after attempting to prevent the kidnapping of Zoya, and that the leader of Malysh's gang wanted to meet with Leo alone at the site of the now demolished Church of Sancta Sophia. In addition to highlighting the problem of Soviet-era criminality in a state where "there is no crime", the novel explores the paranoia of the age, the education system, the secret police apparatus, orphanages, homosexuality in the USSR, and mental hospitals. Their quest for justice threatens a system-wide cover-up enforced by Leo’s psychopathic rival Vasili (Joel Kinnaman), who insists “There is no crime in Paradise.”. [12], Suffering from fatigue and recurring nightmares, Leo took a leave of absence for the first time in four years. Upon hearing the shot, Vasili's men entered the cellar, seeing their dead superior officer. Grachev congratulated Leo, stating Andrei had been a Nazi-trained assassin with orders to undermine the Soviet system by murdering its next generation of communists, and that Leo's arrest had been a result of Stalinist excesses. Child 44 (published in 2008) is a thriller novel by British writer Tom Rob Smith.This is the first novel in a trilogy featuring former MGB Agent Leo Demidov, who investigates a series of gruesome child murders in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union.