And Justice For None.(Society and the Arts; Books)(Child 44)(Book review)

A gripping new thriller examines the fungible concepts of innocence and guilt in Stalinist Russia.

The Stalinist credo of Russian secret police and their willing executioners was unambiguous: "Better to let 10 innocent men suffer than one spy escape." In Tom Rob Smith's debut novel "Child 44" (439 pages. Grand Central Publishing), Leo Stepanovich Demidov, a loyal member of the State Security force that would later go by the infamous initials KGB, operates according to that principle--despite the innocent lives he destroys in the process. Until, that is, he is faced with a murder case that shakes his confidence that the guilty are punished along with the innocent. Smith's story is remarkable not just as an absorbing thriller but also as a penetrating deconstruction of the myths that passed for Soviet justice.

Smith bases his novel very loosely on the true story of Andrei Chikatilo, the notorious serial killer who was tried and executed for the murders of 52 women and children in Russia between 1978 and 1990. But the young British writer cleverly pushes his story back to 1953, when Stalinism was still very much alive. Leo was a war hero who was naturally drawn into the secret police, and Smith leaves no doubt about his willingness to serve his country and its ruthless system. "He would've run Gulags in the arctic tundra of the Kolyma region had they asked him to," Smith writes. Leo is firmly convinced that his masters are perfectly justified in demanding blind obedience.

As so often happened in Stalin's Soviet Union, however, this principle is thrown into doubt when the hunter abruptly becomes the hunted. Leo is instructed to hush disquieting rumors that the son of Fyodor, a junior colleague, has been murdered. The official report of the death blames it on an accident on the railroad tracks, but neither Fyodor nor his neighbors believe it. Without ever examining the evidence, Leo does his duty and warns Fyodor not to question the official version of events, winning his grudging silence but also his enmity. When Leo's performance in another investigation raises questions about his own judgment, the shadow of suspicion is suddenly cast upon him, and Fyodor gets a chance to seek his revenge.

Leo's world begins to unravel. With the relentless logic that anyone suspected of anything must be guilty--a logic that Leo himself employed against ...