Skip to main content

Cild 44- Review

Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith
Where to start with this book? The reviews for it have been hysterically positive. And I am not going to be the lone voice of dissent.

It is a very good book that is less about the crime than the people who inhabit Soviet Russia circa 1953. And I guess this is true of great crime fiction. Great characters bring you back for more. However, my overall feeling is that the 'crime' of this fiction is just a subterfuge for Smith to delve into the grotesqueness of every day Soviet life. The who, how, and why-done-it are never nearly as important as the day in the life aspects of Soviet citizens. Child 44 is billed as serial killer novel, now that is probably too reductive, but the book is called Child 44. I don't think there are any illusions what those 44 children refer too. And while I am sure a substantial portion of the book is devoted to the 'serial killer' it certainly is not the best part of the book or at least the most memorable.

The craft is exceptional but make no mistake, Mr. Smith is more taken with exploring aspects of Soviet life. Indeed a persuasive argument could be made that the Soviet State is the more fascinating serial killer of this novel and not the child killer who is revealed at the books conclusion. Because the craft is so high I don't want to make it seem that I did not enjoy this book. I enjoyed it greatly. We just get a lot of character and not much story. Presumably given the ending of this book we are dealing with a series, some of these character details could have been teased out over the course of a few books.

So what am I really on about here. I guess if I have a criticism it is about the bait and switch aspect of the novel. I was promised one thing and got another.... which admittedly was a great read. But I guess I was hoping for a little more truth in advertising which is not really Mr. Smith's fault... or is it?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is it 'Aughts' or 'Oughts' - The Best of the Decade Pt. II

Better late than what quite possibly could have been never. I found the whole task of formulating and compiling this list to be not very enjoyable. Ugh. Not sure why this list proved laborious to produce. Holidays are not a good time for anything except opening gifts... like a 47" LG LCD television. Let's quit with the complaining and finish the list. If you started here you should go back to the beginning . 5 . DIRT - Sean Doolittle (2001) This was a real toss up for me. I could just as easily gone with the funny and brutal THE CLEAN UP. DIRT gets it by a nose because a lot of what I enjoy about Crime Fiction is discovery. THE CLEAN UP is a great book, one that you should read, but I knew it was going to be good going in. Mr. Doolittle is a terrific writer of human frailty. DIRT contains one of the great truisms of human behavior that we frantically keep secrets from our closest friends and family while just as equally hoping these secrets will be discovered and accepted. I ...
4 comments
Read more

The Very Best of Mr. Michael Connelly - Part 2

My August 31 post of The Hungry Detective ranked all the non-Bosch books. This list returns to take on the larger task of Mr. Heironimous Bosch. 9 Dragons made its appearance right before the Indy B'Con, and try as I might... ok I didn't try that hard... I didn't have time to read it for inclusion in these rankings. As a quick aside I don't want to undersell any of the books at the bottom of the list. Mr. Connelly doesn't know how to write a bad book, but in my case there have been occasions where I have not connected with his work. 13. THE NARROWS - 2004 It is because I love THE POET so much that this book is at the end of the list. When Mr. Connelly is at his best his works has the precision of a watchmaker. THE NARROWS just felt forced and not worthy of the intricacy of THE POET. 12. BLACK ICE - 1993 Second book. Third read. I thought the story was pretty flat. It has been well over a decade since I read this book, but the story of Mexican drug runner...
1 comment
Read more

Murder, Mayhem and the Return of Patrick and Angie

Back from Murder and Mayhem in Muskego IV . It was an ultimately very good weekend if not for a few hiccups. The original intention was to attend the mini-con with my sister who lives in Appleton. Alas, she caught one of the fifty or so colds she will have in the next three months. Everyone at The Hungry Detective office hopes she feels better, and we are already looking forward to attending the fifth installment with her next year. The second minor disappointment was the, I'm sure, entirely unavoidable absences of Duane Swierczynski and Harry Hunsicker . Bummer. (Ed Note. Duane's twitter feed notes a Christening... Cheers to that Mr. Swierczynski!) All of this is, of course, is weighted by the very wonderful news that Dennis Lehane , after taking the balance of a year off after finishing The Given Day, is writing a new book. And it is a Kenzie and Gennaro book. Woo-Hoo! In terms of my own education about Crime Fiction, Dennis is an important figure. I was reading a lot by the...
4 comments
Read more