Finished: Child 44 (Smith) A true page-turner I couldn't put down about a serial killer of children in Russia during the Stalin era...an era when it was illegal to openly recognize that there was such a thing as murder in Russia. Leo Demidov is an MGB (precursor to the KGB) officer who totally believes in the Russian propaganda and has persecuted people who have been arrested before, even if he suspected they were innocent. Once arrested by the State, people were automatically considered guilty and it was just a matter of torturing a confession from them. The people lived in fear of the officers of the State...but the officers of the State also lived in constant fear of failing at their jobs and therefore being demoted and punished themselves. They ALL lived in fear of evidence being manufactured against them, accusing them of being enemies of the State. When the son of an MGB officer beneath Leo is murdered and left by the railroad tracks, Leo's superiors mark it as an accident, saying the boy was fully clothed and sadly killed by the train, playing too close to the tracks. However, the woman that finds his body tells his family that he was naked, with his stomach horrifically cut open, dirt stuffed in his mouth and a string tied around his ankle. The boy's father wants Leo to investigate, and assumes he will as a professional courtesy. However, Leo has to go to the family and show them the report that says the body was found fully clothed and without the other markings. The family is furious, but understands when Leo practically has to bully them into agreeing that it was just a terrible accident. Both Leo and the boy's father know that the entire family themselves can be prosecuted for claiming murder. That doesn't keep the boy's father from terribly resenting Leo, though. Throw in an ambitious, ruthless officer one step beneath Leo, Vasili, who is aching for Leo's job, status and the respect given him by the rest of the MGB force. Vasili sets Leo's wife, Raisa, up to look as if she's a spy! When Leo is asked to investigate his own wife, he actually does it because he's so by the book. However, when his superiors expect him to turn on Raisa and denounce her as a spy, he refuses to do it...knowing that if he does not, that not just Raisa, but he himself and his parents will be persecuted and mostly likely sent to the gulags. It was a huge test by Vasili to see what Leo would do...but he knew what Leo would do all along because Leo was honorable. Leo is kicked out of the MGB and Leo and Raisa aren't sent to the gulags, but sent to a small, cold Russian town where Leo is made to start at the lowest level as a member of the local militia. It's a fate of humiliation and one that Vasili views as being worse than the gulags. Anyway, once in this town, Leo meets his superior at the militia, General Nesterov. Together, they discover that two children have been murdered recently in their area...murdered, stripped, had their mouths stuffed with soil (which really turns out to be tree bark), and had strings tied around their ankles. Leo realizes with huge regret that this must mean his colleague's son back in Moscow truly was murdered like he insisted. They've got a serial killer on their hands! However, since there is no such thing as a good Russian citizen being a murderer, the murders are pinned on a mentally impaired teenager, who just happened to find one of the bodies and cut off a piece of the girl's hair because he liked the color yellow, and a local homosexual who commits suicide when his "abnormal, depraved desires and activities" are outed. Of course, neither one is guilty...but neither one is considered a true, good Russian citizen, so it's OK that they're murderers. Leo and Nesterov quietly travel the countryside bragging about how they caught their amoral killers in hopes that other militia leaders will brag and they'll start to see if there's a pattern of more killings. Pretty smart actually! So...when they get back to their own town they realize that there have been 43 children murdered up and down various towns near the railroad! Leo then points at the map and puts a pushpin in Moscow and says "44...my friend's son was also murdered". From here, the story moves very fast as Vasili realizes what they are up to and is constantly on Leo's tail to arrest him. Meanwhile, Leo and Raisa flee and count on the kindness of Russian town folks, scared for their own children, to hide them while they figure out who the killer is. The killer and how he's related to Leo, of all people, is quite a shocker...but in the end, Leo finds him and kills him....but not before Vasili finds them all! As Vasili makes Leo and Raisa kneel on the floor to be executed, Vasili is killed by the killer who actually saves Leo's life! Leo and Raisa then take Vasili's gun, and at the killer's urging, shoot him dead just as Vasili's officers bound downstairs. Leo is then declared a hero for actually killing the murderer who killed an MGB officer! The MGB write the killer off as someone who had been captured by the Germans during the war and released back into Russia with the "mission" to come and kill little Russian children, thus preventing them from becoming productive Russia citizens, i.e., they still won't admit that a plain old Russian citizen could have become a serial killer. At the end of the book, even though Leo is offered an even higher position in the MGB, he asks instead to head up a new murder investigation task force in case any more people are sent into Russia to cause havoc. Of course, he knows that he'll really be hunting for murderers who are just Russian citizens. During the course of the book, we find out a couple of things about Leo's childhood that are shocking and tie together some of the main characters of the book. The entire thing, despite the horrific luring and killing of the children, was quite fascinating and a fast, good read. :-) I might just have to read the next two books in the trilogy!