The Secret Speech

by Tom Rob Smith

Book Overview

Tom Rob Smith-the author whose debut, Child 44, has been called "brilliant" (Chicago Tribune), "remarkable" (Newsweek) and "sensational" (Entertainment Weekly)-returns with an intense, suspenseful new novel: a story where the sins of the past threaten to destroy the present, where families must overcome unimaginable obstacles to save their loved ones, and where hope for a better tomorrow is found in the most unlikely of circumstances...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446402419
• ISBN13: 9780446402415
• Release Date: May 2010
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.6" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Great follow-up to Child 44

I don't understand the reviewers who think Smith's second book is subpar. On the contrary, The Secret Speech is just as riveting as Child 44. There is just as much action in this sophmore effort, just as much in-depth character study, and as much well-researched historical detail and perspective as his debut novel. Smith has a winning formula and will hopefully stick with his main characters for his next book. I find Leo to be a superb action hero. He has a core of moral goodness and never-ending supply of stamina to endure the physical discomfort and pain to which he is regularly subjected. I loved it. It's like watching a Bourne movie but with the added depth of historical setting. I found Leo's superhuman capacity to endure injury wonderfully exciting and heart-poundingly fun. Raisa is also perfectly drawn: a woman who is slowly learning to trust, a quiet but strong heroine whose love is starting to solidify and grow for Leo. That relationship is also intriguing. Smith leaves us not quite satisfied, wanting more, eager for another story about these two well-drawn characters (as well as their "daughters") and their existence in this harrowing time in history. I'll buy any book he writes from now on. I've become a huge fan.

Sequel to Child 44, Another Winning Piece of Historical Fiction

Tom Rob Smith's The Secret Speech is the sequel to his Child 44, in which Leo Demidov is a state security officer with the MGB (later called the KGB) in Stalin's Soviet Union. Leo gets to the bottom of a series of crimes, serial murders of children, at a time when murders were not talked about and denied because of the claim that there was less crime under Communism. The Secret Speech is three years after the end of Child 44 with Leo, his wife, and their two adopted daughters. It is 1956, Stalin is gone, and Khrushchev has replaced him. Khrushchev is more liberal and criticizes Stalin's rule and tactics. And now the people who were persecuted, jailed, and tortured under Stalin are looking for revenge. Although I wouldn't praise The Secret Speech as highly as I did Child 44, The Secret Speech is still fine historical fiction. It's a not-put-downable novel that is so well researched you might find it difficult to distinguish some fiction from fact. I advise that you read Child 44 before you read The Secret Speech. You'll appreciate more the feelings of Leo's wife and daughters, which are key to understanding The Secret Speech.

Even Better Than Its Predecessor

Tom Rob Smith writes as if he is channeling the ghost of a street-level Soviet bureaucrat. Alternately, one could not be blamed if they reached the conclusion that Smith transcribes the fierce whisperings of an angry babushka who bore forced silent witness to the quiet Stalin-era atrocities that were perpetuated against the Soviet citizenry in the 1950s. Both conclusions would be wrong; Smith describes life in the Soviet bloc in the mid-20th century --- practically a quarter-century before he was born --- with such immediacy that his words, and the sentences and paragraphs that they form, threaten to jump off the printed page. Smith's 2008 debut novel, CHILD 44, garnered critical and commercial acclaim. Unrelentingly grim, it concerned a Soviet state security officer named Leo Demidov, whose assignment to a remote corner of Stalin's Soviet Empire is a de facto exile. Demidov uncovers the existence of a serial killer in a nation where a person committing such crimes cannot exist. It was widely heralded as one of the year's best novels; his follow-up, however improbably, is even better than its predecessor. THE SECRET SPEECH is a novel about transgressions, and how the sins of the past, whether recent or remote, come back to haunt the sinner. Demidov, as demonstrated in CHILD 44, was a bad man who by the end of the book had sought to take a brighter path to redemption. THE SECRET SPEECH opens with a flashback to one of Demidov's most evil actions, the arrest --- and so much more --- of a priest that takes place in Moscow in 1949. The setting fast forwards to Moscow in 1956 where Demidov, now heading the city's homicide department, is living in a shaky domestic tranquility with his wife and their two adopted daughters. He is in the process of investigating a series of suicides that appear to be connected when an event occurs that is of earth-shaking importance: Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin's successor, has denounced Stalin's reign of terror. The Soviet Union is almost immediately turned upside down as a result. Not everyone welcomes this pronouncement, however, particularly those like Demidov who at one time or another had carried out Stalin's orders against the nation's own citizens. Against this chaotic backdrop, the unthinkable happens to Demidov and his wife: Zoya, one of their very troubled adopted daughters, is kidnapped by a vory, a dangerous criminal fraternity operating outside of society. The enigmatic leader of the group is holding Zoya hostage and demands that Demidov help right a wrong that he committed some years before. In order to free Zoya, he must make an near- impossible journey across the breadth of the Soviet Union to one of the government's most dreaded gulags to free a man who has almost been forgotten and return him to Moscow. What Demidov discovers, however, is that his dangerous sojourn is but the first in a series of actions that will end violently --- and, for some, very badly --- in Budapest as Hungarian citizens, embo

Redemption and the Soul of Russia

There is something about Mother Russia that inspires writers to turn inward even as outwardly they are surveying the vastness of that nation. This tendency is not restricted to native born authors, American writers like Stuart M. Kaminsky have found themselves quickly captured by the Russian soul, which cries out for understanding, forgiveness and redemption. Now Tom Rob Smith, the brilliant young Englishman, has followed his debut novel with another brilliant exploration of life in the Soviet Union. When we last saw Leo Demidov in Child 44 he had escaped employment in the clutches of the MGB, the predecessor of the KGB to form a homicide bureau in the militia. In a very real sense this new undertaking, in the Soviet system that refused to recognize crimes of non-political causes (hence every crime could be explained ideologically) was a either a revolutionary break with the past or a counter-revolutionary event. In post-Stalinist Russia Demidov hoped it was the former while continuing to fear those who saw it otherwise. The Secret Speech, whose title refers to Krushchev's 1956 address to the Central Committee was supposed to break with the past. The speech exposed and denounced Stalin's murderous excesses and reign of terror. The problem lay in the reality that Stalin did not act alone, hundreds of thousands of citizens, if not millions were complicit in those crimes, and the admission of them did nothing to bring reconciliation or redemption. Demidov had struggled to forget his previous life, a life handsomely rewarded by the state. He was a member of a caste which arbitrarily arrested, tried, imprisoned, tortured, exiled and executed citizens. Rather than absolving him of his crimes against humanity, the Krushchev speech called him into account for for them. Thus humbled, his efforts to atone take him away from the state stores of the privileged few in Moscow to the gold mines and prison barges of the Gulag and ton to the Hungarian uprising. Does Leo Demidov ever find redemption? That answer may wait for another installment in what appears to feature the most interesting new series character since Harry Bosch. Answered or not, The Secret Speech is that rare treasure, literature disguised as genre fiction.

4 1/2 Stars -- A Very Strong Follow-Up To Child 44!

Let me start off by saying that The Secret Speech is not quite as good as Child 44 -- BUT it is a very good historical thriller and definitely well worth reading. Tom Rob Smith's second novel takes places in 1956, post-Stalin Soviet Union. During this time a violent regime is beginning to come apart, resulting in a society where the police are the criminals and the criminals are the innocent. The "firecracker" during this period is when a secret document based on a speech by Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, is distributed throughout the nation. The basic theme of Khrushchev's message is that Stalin was a murderer and a tyrant, and that life in the Soviet Union will improve. The plot of The Secret Speech moves from the streets of Moscow during its political upheaval, to the Siberian gulags and to the heart of the Hungarian uprising in Budapest. Central to the plot is former state security officer, Leo Demidov, the hero of Smith's Child 44. Demidov is now the head of Moscow's homicide department, and while striving to see justice done, his life is in turmoil due to trying to build a life with his wife, Raisa, and their adopted daughters who have yet to forgive him for his role in the death of their parents. On top of this personal turmoil, Demidov and his family are in serious danger from someone with a grudge against him. The Secret Speech is an exciting, visceral, well-written page-turner from beginning to end that paints a vivid picture of the post-Stalinist Soviet Union at its onset. Further, as was also true in Child 44, Smith's characters are richly developed and are ones that this reader felt he got to know well. I should point out that The Secret Speech isn't flawless, although none of these flaws are major. Perhaps, the biggest of these minor flaws is that some of the plot developments are somewhat too coincidental and a bit far-fetched. But this book is fiction, after all, and these minor flaws do help to contribute to the book's excitement. In addition, I should point out that potential readers of The Secret Speech would highly benefit from reading Child 44 first. Enjoy!