Tom Rob Smith, Child 44 (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2008). Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle A serial killer haunts the western Soviet Union in 1953. According to Communist Party doctrine, such a crime cannot exist in a socialist country, where the State has eliminated inequality and poverty and hence the crimes that arise from them. To assert that a serial killer exists—let alone to track him down and seek his punishment—is thus a counterrevolutionary act, a crime that the State takes seriously and punishes severely. Leo Stepanovich Demidov is a decorated hero of the Great Patriotic War and a … Continue reading Review of ‘Child 44’ by Tom Rob Smith