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Leo Demidov is a model Soviet citizen. A hero of the Great Patriotic War (World War II), a conscientious officer in the secret police, he lives only to serve the state. And serve it he does, never questioning the presumptions of a political paranoia that condemns thousands to prison camps or death as enemies of the people on the basis of confessions that Leo and his fellow officers have coerced. But Leo has a weakness - he is, at bottom, a moral man. He can live comfortably only as long as he remains unawakened to the horrors that he himself perpetrates in the service of the greater good. Several events occur almost simultaneously to shake Leo's complacency - he makes a mortal enemy of another MGB officer, Vasili, who arranges to have Leo's wife accused of spying, which leads to Leo's demotion and exile beyond the Urals. There he discovers the corpse first of one then another child that has been hideously mutilated in unspeakable ways. The injuries remind him of another dead child, the four-year-old son of one of Leo's subordinates. Though at the time, following the official line,he had insisted that the family accept that the boy had died in a tragic accident, he now begins to wonder. Leo was implacable as a secret policeman; he is equally implacable as a free-lance detective as he and his wife seek to find and kill the child-killer, a child-killer who cannot officially exist. His quest is dangerously subversive of prized Soviet platitudes and provides ample ammunition for Vasili's attempt to bring him down. The book opens with a gripping prologue, set in 1933 at the height of the Ukrainian famine that saw millions perish of starvation. Two little boys set out in pursuit of a cat that they hope to catch and eat; instead, they are themselves stalked as prey. Only one returns home. The problem with beginning on a note this startling is what happens next. Regrettably, Smith decides to take the path of excess. His fugitive husband and wife are made to perform extraordinary physical feats to elude capture. No aspect of Soviet society in the waning days of Stalin seems to have the slightest redeeming feature; the cooperation of the citizenry in its own repression is virtually universal. The central idea of the book, the moral awakening of a servant of the state, is an interesting one. Robert Harris explored it with greater sophistication some years ago in FATHERLAND. But Harris was able to embrace ambiguity and tragedy; Smith settles for melodrama and gruesome thrills.
Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, April 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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