Product Description

Soviet Union, 1956: Stalin is dead. With his passing, a violent regime is beginning to fracture - leaving behind a society where the police are the criminals, and the criminals are innocent. The catalyst comes when a secret manifesto composed by Stalin's successor Khrushchev is distributed to the entire nation. Its message: Stalin was a tyrant and a murderer. Its promise: The Soviet Union will transform. But there are forces at work that are unable to forgive or forget Stalin's tyranny so easily, that demand revenge of the most appalling nature. Meanwhile, former MGB officer Leo Demidov is facing his own turmoil. The two young girls he and his wife Raisa adopted have yet to forgive him for his involvement in the murder of their parents. They are not alone. Now that the truth is out, Leo, Raisa and their family are in grave danger from someone with a grudge against Leo. Someone transformed beyond recognition into the perfect model of vengeance.From the streets of Moscow in the throes of political upheaval, to the wintry Siberian gulags and to Budapest, where a revolution will destroy as many innocent lives as the regime it is attempting to end, The Secret Speech is another stunning thriller from the author of the Booker- longlisted Child 44.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2578 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-06
• Released on: 2009-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Tom Rob Smith’s first book, Child 44, enjoyed unprecedented attention and acclaim (as did its youthful author), so it was inevitable that the appetite for that novel’s successor would be keen. Now it’s here, and The Secret Speech, largely speaking, lives up the promise of its Fleming-Dagger-winning predecessor, despite being a very different book: Ex-MGB officer Leo Dormidov returns and becomes involved in a narrative so incident-packed it makes the earlier book seem positively sedate.

The most memorable thing about the first novel, of course, was the moral transformation of the hero, initially a charismatic tool of the brutal state apparatus, enforcing the Stalin-era edicts with grim efficiency until he becomes hunted rather hunter and earns some hard-won humanity. Part of the point of Child 44 was the protagonist’s journey of character – so how to follow this, when Leo has become a human being by the end of the first novel?

The Secret Speech performs this tricky balancing act by taking the reader back to 1949, with Leo the unreformed agent of the state, behaving with the callousness he once possessed before his life was turned upside down. We are then taken to the mid-fifties, after the death of Stalin (as cracks begin to show in the totalitarian Soviet State). Khrushchev’s famous denunciation of the Stalin era ushers in significant changes, and Leo Dormidov (along with his wife Raisa and their daughters) are in danger, as the power of the police is undercut – and, in fact, the police are now identified as enemies of the state. This is only one of the dangers that Leo faces: there is now a ruthless enemy on his trail – as ruthless as Leo was himself in the days of his authority and acclaim.

There is no denying that the bracing innovation of the first book (in what is to be a trilogy) burns at a lower wattage here – that’s inevitable – but Smith is too adroit a writer not to keep us comprehensively gripped (breathless, even, as climax after climax is piled into a crowded narrative). --Barry Forshaw

Review
'As a study of betrayal at every level, The Secret Speech is masterly. It brilliantly portrays a society stripped of every element of love, trust and respect; compassion is a weakness to be exploited and denunciation is accepted with resignation... Smith's vision of the past skilfully enables the reader to imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever, and the fact that the boot is worn by the victim's children opens up a fresh hell unimagined by Orwell. Stalin's stock seems to be rising in Russia again. Read this and shiver.'
--Sunday Telegraph, March 29 2009

Review
'In a market saturated by production-line thrillers, Child 44 stood out like Hannibal Lecter at a serial killers' convention...its sequel maintains the momentum...If it's thrills you are after, this book delivers. It's a great piledriver of a read'

'As in Child 44, Smith's plotting is elaborate, and his pacing is relentless. His characters are wonderfully drawn, and the near-nonstop action is utterly gripping. Again, as in the earlier book, however, the author's greatest success is in personalizing the stunning tragedy and brutality of life for many millions of Russians. The Secret Speech is a harrowing novel, but everyone who loved Child 44 will leap to read it'

Customer Reviews

The Secret Speech
Tom Rob Smith reminds me of another lesser known aurthor,Stuart Macbride.
They both write about detectives. Stuarts hero lives in Aberdeen.

Tom Rob Smith brings out the struggle that all Russians had during this period in their history. His hero battles a system which is corrupt and full of secrecy. Leo Demidov fights his way through this system to raise his family and catch the bad and evil.

His writing is rich and full of discription, you really cant put the book down. If like me you read to the end of a chapter then your next working day is consumed with what you might read when you get home.

In order to really get to grips with Leo you MUST read his first book, Child 44. Its stunning and has a nasty twist at the end.

Enjoy this book, its great.

Craig, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. UK.

Better than Child 44 but still no better than OK
Set 3 years after CHILD 44, Leo now heads a secret homicide department with his friend, Timur Nesterov. Although he and Raisa live in a smart apartment with Elena and Zoya, their adopted daughters, Zoya cannot forgive Leo for his part in the death of her parents and her hatred is poisoning the family.

When the new premier, Kruschev, orders the publication of a speech that he made criticising the actions of the government under Stalin, it triggers a series of murders - the victims all people who participated in Stalin's repression of the innocent. The deaths force Leo to confront his first arrest as an MGB agent, where he infiltrated and betrayed an Orthodox priest, Lazar. Soon Leo's past will put him and his family in danger as a figure from Leo's past seeks revenge, sending him on a daring mission to a Siberian gulag and then onto Hungary, where an uprising is brewing.

Whether you enjoy this book depends on whether you can ignore the way Smith plays fast and loose with historical facts and make some rather ludicrous plot jumps. The set pieces are slick if improbable and Smith keeps the action coming.

As with CHILD 44, the problem lies with Leo who never convinces as having once been a ruthless MGB officer given his naivety and the ease with which he is manipulated by others. His need for redemption is slightly more satisfying, particularly his desperation to receive some kind of forgiveness from Zoya. Raisa gets less time on the page and as a result, her relationship with Zoya, which is so pivotal to the plot, fails to fully engage. Zoya herself is something of a stock character and although her hatred and rage is well portrayed, the motivation for some of her actions is superficial - particularly her relationship with Malysh and the ease with which she leaves Elena. Thankfully Leo's nemesis, Fraera, is dynamic, cunning and ruthless, utterly devoted to their cause and the leader of a criminal (vory) gang - Fraera's presence lends the novel a much-needed spark.

Smith's ambitious in trying to weave political machinations into a historical context, but the complexity prevents it from being convincing and the ending, while leaving the way open for a continuation, feels a little half-hearted. This isn't a bad book, but it's not great either. The best that can be said is that it's an okay read.

Not a patch on Child 44
The first book in the series was masterful, and it seemed like Smith was set to be a first-rate talent in the same league as LeCarre. And maybe (hopefully) he still is, but this sequel is quite a disappointment. It needed another draft or two: the writing feels rushed, the lead characters are anachronistic (the story is set in 1956, but Leo and Raisa behave like modern designed-for-sympathy heroes) and there's too much self-consciously movie-like thriller writing.

It's possibly that having the first book optioned by Ridley Scott caused the author to have too much of an eye on the movie this time out. Child 44 was a much better novel but will be hard to adapt as a movie because so much happens in it. This time, the action is a lot more compressed (and contrived) and there's a lot more tell not show in the recapping. In places I was thinking, "Oh dear he's gone all Dan Brown" and, while the writing is nowhere near that bad, it's still a big let-down after Smith's brilliant debut. Still worth 3 stars - but Child 44 was worth 6.

Incidentally, the proofreading is pretty poor too. I found "it's" as a possessive. That's rubbish in an expensive hardback from a major publisher. Pull your socks up, Simon & Schuster.