In Tom Rob Smith’s gripping thriller, the biggest threat to Leo Demidov is not the serial killer he is hunting but the State he is fighting to protect
Tom Rob Smith
Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44 was, for its time, an unusual Booker Prize choice. Based on the true case of a Soviet child murderer, readers could treat the book as a thriller or as something more ambitious
Child 44 was the first part of a trilogy, followed by The Secret Speech (2009) and Agent 6 (2011). The novel was turned into a big-budget film by Ridley Scott, with a cast featuring Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman and Noomi Rapace. Before writing fiction, Smith - who is half English, half-Swedish - had a job in Phnom Penh working for the BBC, scripting storylines for Cambodia’s first soap opera. Smith’s more recent work has also been for the screen rather than the page: he was series creator for both the BBC’s London Spy and MotherFatherSon.
All nominated books
Features
- Book recommendations