The Secret Speech

By Tom Rob Smith

A sequel to Child 44 (reviewed below) it was also its equal. Taking place in post-Stalinist Russia it takes an intimate story of one families life and ends up telling a broader story about Russia at this time period. Moreover, this is done through a very exciting, ever surprising storyline of murder and betrayal that apans from Moscow to the gulags to Budapest and into a million smaller terrains of each characters' interior landscape. A harsh landscape, formed through a brutal system under Stalin where mistrust was a given, betrayal always a possibility and where simple survival was a major accomplishment (and in turn made you a suspect).

When one experiences unfair cruelty what kind of a person is forged? When one works along side coercive power and participates in unmentionable acts how do they reconstruct a person of honor? When both of these and every experience in the middle have agonized an entire people with brutality and fear, how does the collective move forward, how does a people purge the wrongs of the past?

"It can't be true. How could it be? But it was here, with a State-stamped letter, containing information only the State would know, with sources, quotes, references. The conspiracy of silence, which Nikolai had presumed would last forever, was over. It was no trick. The speech was real." Pg 55

"I know about the changes you've made. You're no longer KGB, your militia. You deal with real crimes, not political ones. You've adopted two beautiful young girls. This is your idea of redemption, yes? What does any of it mean to me? What of the debt you owe me? What of the debt you owe the men and women you arrested?How is that to be paid?" Pg 117

"I have done things of which I am not proud. It is time I asked for your forgiveness." Pg 225

"The three year pretense had come to an end. He was no father, no husband, and certainly no hero. He would join the KGB." Pg 297