The
Secret Speech ,
by Tom Rob Smith (Read by Dennis Boutsikaris)
Remarkable! Explosive! Gripping! These
are some the words that befit this fine book. The author's
previous book, Child
44, was just as outstanding, and at its conclusion
left the listener wanting more. This book continues
the saga of Leo and Raisa three years after the end
of Child 44. Leo is working with the special
homicide division in Moscow 1956, and Raisa has returned
to teaching. Stalin is gone and Khrushchev is now the
ruler.
The city of Moscow is suddenly turned topsy
turvy when copies of Khrushchev's speech to his governing
body -- the famous Secret Speech -- is sent to all schools
and public agencies along with the order for it to be
read to all citizens. In the speech, Khrushchev states
that Stalin was wrong in ordering the deaths, tortures
and confinements in gulags of hundreds of thousands
of innocent people.
Not only does Leo risk possible retaliation
for his past involvement with the secret police, he
finds himself the target of a vendetta by Fraera, once
the wife of a priest he arrested and sent to a gulag
and now the leader of a band of thieves and murders.
So strong is Fraera's hatred for Leo that she does not
want him instantly killed, she wants him to suffer as
she and her husband have for the last seven years. Knowing
that Leo wants nothing more than to have a happy peaceful
life with his wife and the two orphan girls they've
adopted, Fraera kidnaps the older girl, Zoya, and threatens
to kill her unless Leo rescues Lazar, her husband, from
the gulag. This takes Leo on a torturous mission to
a Siberian gulag, a punishment worse than death.
The story takes the listener across Russia
and Eastern Europe from one electrifying situation to
another, following Leo and Raisa as they try to rescue
their daughter and salvage their marriage and family.
Through the author's great skill with words you will
feel the gripping fear and tension as Leo encounters
the turmoil of a prison ship caught in a raging storm,
as he navigates the rat-infested Moscow sewers in pursuit
of a killer, and as he and Raisa find themselves unwilling
participants in the Hungarian uprising of 1956.
Tom Rob Smith has the amazing ability to
retell the events of history in such a vivid way that
the listener truly feels like an eyewitness to the incidents.
His storytelling is enhanced by the reader, Denis Boutsikaris.
His ability to portray the characters with the perfect
Russian accent makes them even more believable.
At the conclusion of this fast-paced historical
thriller, some listeners may feel satisfied with the
conclusion and some may not, but everyone will be left
wanting another Tom Rob Smith installment in the saga
of Leo Demidov as he plays his part in the history of
Russia.
John
Mormon
6/12/09
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