Yuku free message boards

I read a book called "Child 44" by Tom Rob Smith.

It plays in the Soviet Union in 1953 during Stalins time. A dead child is found murdered on the railroad tracks. But the government rules it as accident. Because communism is perfect the state says there is no murder because all people are happy. The main character is Leo Demidov, he is an agent who always believed in his country and thought that all the bad things he did, like kidnapping people and torture them until they admit that they are spies, were okay.

He starts to question the states methods and is exiled with his wife to a small village. There he finds about other murders and starts to investigate. The local police already has a suspect, a young man who lives in an asylum for insane people. But Leo thinks he is innocent, and while trying to proof that he gets himself and his family in danger. Because people who work against the system are either send into the gulag or killed.

I'm halfway through the book and I have to say it's the first time that I read something about the Soviet Union. But it won't be the last. I'm sure. I can't really say how accurate the author described the live during that time. If it's accurate then the paranoia must have been pretty high and killing your own citizen is never a good thing.