This book has been out for a while, and my review will probably go unseen, so I'm going to keep it short and sweet:

Engrossing, terrifying, addictive - great read.

Like many, however, I wasn't crazy about the ending. Things were wrapped up, but not very neatly; questions were left unanswered (the reason behind the method of the murders, for one), and some of the reasoning and solutions seemed convenient rather than plausible.

Despite that, it was still a great read. I'd recommend it to any mystery fan.

Please read other reviews for a synopsis of the story. The first third of Child 44 is an extremely engaging read that graphically depicts the psychological torment of life in late Stalinist Russia. Mistrust is the common currency of virtually any social interaction including the intimacies of family and friends. Whether Tom Rob Smith's descriptive powers are more the result of an extremely fertile imagination or thorough research, this reader was quickly drawn into that frightening totalitarian world so grimly portrayed. The novel unfortunately becomes increasingly concerned with the suddenly enlightened and obsessed hero's quest to win over his estranged wife while finding the serial killer who is the author of countless murders of young children. The implausiblity of the story and of much of the action increases exponentially as Leo's search heads towards its climax. What had initially kept me up past my bedtime with excitement and anticipation became, if not a chore, an obligation worth seeing through to its less than satisfactory end.

Child 44 is an amazing book. It has great characters and a suspenseful and tense plot. I especially enjoyed the historical setting of this book, Russia under Stalin's regime. Yes, Child 44 is fiction but the author tried to incorporate many factual events into his work, making it a well-rounded and complete novel. This is an impressive debut novel. I will be looking forward to Tom Rob Smith's next book.

A thriller! Unconventional. Unpredictable. I didn't know how it could possibly end.

The plot of this story and the carefully crafted setting in the former Soviet Union is so good that you will race to the finish.

Everything works backward in the Soviet Union. Good is bad. Bad is good. And to add nuance, Stalin dies in the middle of the book so you don't even know to what degree good or bad. At times you are lost in a house of mirrors, not knowing what will happen when the characters move right or left.

Now add a brilliant plot, worthy of John Le Carre at his very best. And I mean at his very best. For when it comes to logic and plots, even John Le Carre isn't John Le Carre anymore. The Panama Tailor, with its story of the Japanese takeover of the Panama Canal, representing his weakest entry. But Child 44 has a couple of twists that invoke the sort of chills that came with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

Of course, Tom Rob Smith is no John Le Carre, at least when it comes to language. I mean he has a few lines... "To stand up for someone was to stitch your fate into the lining of theirs." Or "the wallpaper was bubbled like adolescent skin." But it is the unpredictable plot, not language, that rules this story.

Now, there are times when I really wondered. I have visited all of these places in Russia many times, from Rostov to Moscow and points east. And I am going back this year, from St. Petersburg to Volgograd to Yekaterinburg to Vladivostok. I kept telling myself that I have to pack this book along and ask my old Russian friends about the validity of some of the author's ideas. Let's face it the Wall not only kept them in, it kept us out. Yet still, some of them are as ignorant as we are about real life in the former Soviet Union.

The book has a couple of distractions. There are some odd, James Bond moments, probably thrown in for the movie version to come, but hey, good luck happens.

From the looks of his picture on the jacket, this author is young. So his language will develop sophistication. And his experience will bring more realism to his works. But his ability to plot is so profound and his character development so complex that we will surely be reading many of his new stories for years to come. Those are gifts of a brilliant, unconventional, easily bored mind. They cannot

Loved this book. I listened to it on audio and I couldn't stop listening. I kept cleaning, folding laundry, scrubbing floors, just because I didn't want it to stop!

Having never written a review of any sort, I could not help but express my thanks to the author for this reality check describing Stalin's Russia. The atrocities of the serial killer and those experienced by the Russian general population are the same in their brutality and insanity. This is a serial killer story straight from the pages of Animal Farm. If you are a grandparent give this book to your children. They will appreciate a good fiction story and gain a better picture of what happens in a totalitarian state. Later they can share this book with your grandchildren.

Riveting
5+ stars. One of the very best novels of 2008. Outstanding in all respects! After my wife read Child 44 in two nights, she gave it to me as a must read. Well, having spent some time visiting behind the Iron Curtain I wasn't too thrilled about reading a book about Stalinist Russia. My impressions of Russia centered on the color gray. From the people, to the environment, to daily life, everything was a dismal gray. In short depressing. Nonetheless, my wife is right 95% of the time so I picked up Child 44 and started to read. 2 days later I was stunned by how outstanding Mr. Smith's debut novel was. It is simply terrific.
Dark, brooding, mysterious, and yet filled with hope. It is Russian to the core, yet throughout it all there is a timeless since of "we will persevere, we will survive!" It is the story of one man's struggle to find his inner peace. Stolen from his biological family at an early age, Leo Demidov is raised by surrogate parents and eventually becomes a part of the post WW2 Stalin era as a member of USSR State Security Force. An ardent defender of the state system, Leo becomes transformed when he realizes that a serial killer of children is on the loose in Russia. He knows that this is not a recognized crime in Utopian Stalin Russia. As he pursues this killer, he himself is denounced as a state troublemaker and is exiled to a backwater town just west of the Ural Mountains. There he continues his quest for the serial killer despite being told to cease and desist by the State Police or face exile to the gulag or worse death. Through all this Leo comes to realize what is truly important in life, saves his strained marriage, and continues to persevere in his hunt for the killer. Child 44 is a wonderful story of the indomitable human spirit. It is both Kafkaesque and Zhivagoesque in its portrayal of Stalinist Russia after WW2. Don't be put off by the subject matter or period-it is simply too good a book not to read.
Character development was absolutely superb. Mr. Smith was able to do in 426 pages what some authors couldn't do in 4000 pages. He wove a tight story but developed the characters with ease and fluidity. An amazing feat for his debut novel.
Some graphic violence but very germane to the story. No gratuitous sex or language.
Must read. Gripping.

The first 3/4 of this novel is a remarkable achievement. The prologue is harrowing, the dialogue razor sharp and the story and characters complex and fascinating. But perhaps the greatest strength of the novel is its setting (The Soviet Union in the early 1950's) and the premise that a serial killer could murder dozens, perhaps hundreds of children, and go undetected because of the State's unwillingness to admit that murder happens in their `utopian' state. Murders are blamed on vagrants and Western spies or are claimed to be accidents or otherwise covered up. The notion that a party member could commit such atrocities is contrary to the propaganda machine of the totalitarian regime. The majority of the novel is suitably bleak and cruel and suffocating as the state clamps down on its people and thwarts any attempt to solve these crimes. (Sounds dreary I know - but trust me, it's riviting).

Unfortunately I didn't care for the ending. There is the contrived plot twist that was completely unnecessary, but totally predictable - but I could live with that. And then the common folk rally behind our heroes, at great risk to their communities, to help in ways that seemed a little too 'warm and fuzzy' to me - but I could live with that too.

What I really struggled with was the aftermath. I don't want to ruin the ending for anyone, but suffice it to say that many things get resolved in a completely improbable, sentimental way that is completely out of sync with the realistic, dark tone of the rest of the novel.

I know I am probably in the minority here but I would have liked an ending that evoked Orwell's 1984. I suppose most people like a happy ending and I can't help but feel that Smith compromised in order to pander to them. To me, the aftermath sabotaged the novel. It just didn't fit with the tone of the novel.

The dilemma: How do you rate a novel that captivates you so fully, only to frustrate you in the end? To put this in context, the first part of Child 44 isn't just good. It's `Mystic River' good. It's `Silence of the Lambs' good. This could have been one of the best novels ever written.

In the end, I settled on 4 stars. The majority of this novel is too good to be ranked any lower and the ending (the last sentence of the novel is so sappy it makes me cringe to think about it) is so frustrating I can't bring myself to award it 5 stars. Regardless of my whining, this is still a great novel, well worth reading. (Of course, if you like a tidy, happy ending, you'll love the aftermath and feel all `warm and glowy' while you read the final page).

Am I the only one who didn't like the ending? In the comment section I have provided a synopsis of the ending I would have liked to have seen (don't read the comments if you haven't read the novel yet)

The first 300 pages were informative about life in Russia under Stalin and captured my interest. My enthusiasm declined during next 100 pages and the
last 100 pages were dreadful, full of ridiculous predicaments and very
far-fetched solutions.

I loved this book despite it having one of the weakest endings I have ever encountered in any novel, much less one so riveting and well written. Mr. Smith creates tension like few authors have ever managed to do. The first 50 pages or so are very bleak and I empathize with the readers that found them too grim. I actually found the depiction of Stalinist Russia unbelievably fascinating.

As the main character of Leo transforms, the plot really takes over and it is the main part of the book that I just cherished. I literally could not put it down at that point. But the final major plot twist is actually jaw dropping awful. I couldn't believe it and it really was an unecessary device. How can someone write something so brilliant and then tie it up so inanely? The tension, the relationship of Leo and his wife. Leo's nemesis Vasili. These are all great elements to a great story, and were it not for the last 50 pages this would have been a 5 star rating. I hope Ridley Scott throws away Smith's ending when he films the book with Leo starring as Leo. I usually hate it when filmmakers alter books that I have loved due to running time or structure necessities, but changing the ending of this great novel when it is filmed would be a wise decision indeed.