Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith takes place in Stalin’s Soviet Union when everyone was considered a criminal. The MGB (predecessor to the KGB) had torture cells in the Lubyanka prison where the accused were interrogated until they confessed crimes and revealed names of others who were then arrested and confessed, etc. And if they survived all that, they were sent to the Gulags to die.

The story begins at the end of World War II in Ukraine, where there is no food. A woman who has managed to keep her cat alive sets it free prior to ending her own life. A boy sees the cat run off and determines to catch it and kill it for meat. The boy and his near-sighted younger brother hunt, trap, and kill the cat, but as they are about to bring it home, the boy is knocked on the head and carried away.

Years later, Leo, the protagonist, is an MGB officer, hunting down and tracking a criminal, and through that pursuit, he begins to understand the inhumane process of which he is a part. He is married to a beautiful teacher who has been associating with an intellectual, and she is accused of being a traitor to the cause because of her association. Leo is given the choice of condemning his wife to death, freeing himself and his parents of further accusations, or denying the accusations, transferring the guilt to himself.

Despite his diminished status, when Leo discovers a series of murders of children, he can’t resist pursuing the criminal because the militia deny that murder (and therefore murderers) can exist.

This is a harrowing murder mystery story set in a world where population and order are distorted. It is well written and was made into a movie in 2015 starring Tom Hardy and directed by Ridley Scott. The detail is excruciating and realistic, making it hard to believe that Tom Rob Smith didn’t live in Soviet Russia in the 1950s.