403 pgs (Leo Demidov trilogy #2)
In 1956, Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, gave a
speech behind closed doors to the leaders of the Soviet regime. In it, he condemned
Stalin and those who carried out his ruthless decrees. The purpose of the
speech was to usher in a new era in the Soviet Union, an era in which the
government acted in the best interests of its citizens, and the citizens didn’t
live in constant fear of being condemned by coworkers, neighbors, and even
family members, and sent to work in a Siberian gulag for the rest of their
lives.
The speech was quickly leaked to the press and soon the MGM
agents, police, judges, and everyone else who had helped Stalin maintain his genocidal
dictatorship found themselves constantly looking over their shoulders, in fear
of the reprisals which were occurring throughout many of the cities in Russia. Leo
Demidov, the former officer of Stalin’s secret police, and the hero of Smith’s
first book Child 44 is no exception.
In his years working for the secret police, Leo had sent
hundreds of his countrymen to the gulags and torture chambers, and his past is
determined to catch up to him. Fraera, the wife of a man Leo had betrayed and
sent to a gulag in Siberia seven years ago reenters his life and is determined
to destroy the new life Leo has tried to create for himself, his wife, and
their two adopted daughters.
I read Child 44 a
few months ago, which tells the story of Leo’s pursuit of a sensational mass
murderer who prayed on children throughout Russia, and I considered it one of
the best books I had read in a long time. The
Secret Speech is a very different type of story, but it’s just as
compelling. This time around the scope of the Smith’s story is broader and he
includes several themes which made it a difficult book for me to put down.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
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