Though not as good as Child 44, this was still a good read. ( )

This is book two of the Tom Hardy...I mean...Leo Demidov Trilogy. Stalin has died. The Soviet Union is beginning to split between the strict totalitarian rule, those who want to maintain control over the people, and the Revolutionists who want their freedoms back and retribution for the crimes committed by those in charge.

It is now 1956, a new crime wave has arisen in and around Moscow. Nikita Khrushchev (a real person by-the-way), First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, has denounced Stalin’s actions of cruelty over the years and denounced the MGB & KGB’s actions as MURDEROUS. He has put out a manuscript, known as The Secret Speech, naming every single person involved in murdering innocent people and provided a list of the informers (friends and families betraying friends and families) and a list of those killed in the name of Stalin. Former retired MGB’s are receiving photographs of the innocent people they each had arrested, accused and killed over the years, and they are delivering packages at each MGB agent’s door with The Secret Speech full of incriminating information on all the innocent people they have harmed. One by one, they are being killed.

When Leo’s adopted daughter gets kidnapped. He is blackmailed by the vory. They will kill her unless he can get Lazar, an innocent priest Leo beat up and had sent to Gulag 57, released from prison. So, Leo has to enter the prison under a disguise as another prisoner, but then the whole plan falls apart.

Here, he is incidentally appointed to the same barracks as Lazar. The prisoners in this ward have a payback system for any militia or MGB who is found to be ordered into their barracks. They have a list of over 30 different punishments that each prisoner had gone through, and these punishments would be administered, one by one and night by night. It’s Leo’s turn. If he survives these punishments, then they will let him live. First on the list? His knees.

It’s pretty much a pager turner from here as Leo tracks down and tries to save his adopted daughter. This really would be an awesome movie. I hope it’s being considered…starring Tom Hardy, of course.

OOPS…..
Found a mistake in the novel:

p. 186: The flower Leo held in his hand caught a breeze and flew out of his hand to the ground.

p. 188: Just two pages later, the author forgot that the flower flew out of Leo’s hand and writes: “But Leo had stopped listening. Inside his clammy fist, he’d crushed the dried purple flower to powder.”

(haha)


Still a good story!

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Recommended books for further reading:

• Journey to a Revolution: A Personal Memoir and History of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 - by Michael Korda (2006)
• Twelve Days: Revolution 1956: How the Hungarians Tried to Topple Their Soviet Masters - by Victor Sebestyen (2006)
• The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 - by Gyorgy Litvan, translated by Janos M. Bak and Lyman H. Legters (1966)
• Shallow Graves in Siberia - by Michael Krupa (1997)…considered a deeply moving read. ( )

Unión Soviética, 1956: la muerte de Stalin marca el principio del fi n de un sistema donde la policía actuaba como criminales. Aunque Jruschev promete reformar el país, hay fuerzas que no son capaces ni de olvidar ni de reconciliarse con los nuevos tiempos. Leo Demidov, antiguo oficial del Ministerio parala Seguridad Estatal, se enfrenta a su propio pasado. Sus hijas, él y su mujer, se encuentran en un grave peligro: alguien trata de ejecutar despiadadamente su particular venganza.

I'm pretty sure I read the complete trilogy and that I liked all three books? But 2016 was a crazy year (mom had a heart attack, then she broke her hip so I moved to Arkansas and didn't even get a chance to pack up first) so I'm only guessing here. ( )

Leo Demidov is forced to confront the actions he took as a secret policemen earlier in his career as one of the persecuted comes back with a vengeance to destroy him, his family, and if possible, the system that allowed him and others to rule with an iron first. Fast paced. ( )