The Secret Speech

If you like historical mysteries and miss the Cold War, check out Tom Rob Smith's latest starring Leo Demidov, a surprisingly complicated and sympathetic Soviet cop.

The Secret Speech, by Tom Rob Smith. Grand Central Publishing, $24.99 (405p) ISBN 978-0-446-40240-8

Smith, a rising star in the historical mystery genre, brings back Leo Demidov, a Soviet-era secret police officer and the protagonist of his acclaimed debut novel, Child 44, for this gripping tale of conspiracy and revenge. (See my 2008 review of Child 44 here: http://www.military.com/entertainment/books/book-reviews/military-bookshelf-spring-potpourri-part-deux. A mass-market paperback edition was published in April, 2009.)

To set the stage: Long-time Soviet dictator Josef Stalin is dead, and following a secession struggle, has been replaced by his former protégé Nikita Khrushchev. The new numero uno, however, has a big surprise in store for his colleagues.

On Feb. 25, 1956, speaking before the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev shocked the assembled delegates by denouncing his former patron's murderous regime. The address, justly renowned, is known as "the Secret Speech" or "the Khrushchev Report."

Khrushchev later ordered that the speech be read in all Soviet schools and factories. The long "conspiracy of silence . . . was over." That event and its aftermath is the back-story for Smith's thriller. For more on the origins of this surprising, and disingenuous, episode—including Stalin's bloody reign and Khrushchev's calculated rise to power—see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Speech

Smith's protagonist Demidov, haunted by his service as a member of the secret police, now runs a homicide bureau in Moscow and is trying to build a stable family life with wife Raisa and adopted daughters Zoya and Elena.

His life is upended, however, when someone starts killing retired secret police officers: an "agenda of revenge" that is led by one of Demidov's former victims and has him as its ultimate target.

When Zoya is kidnapped, Demidov is sent on a harrowing odyssey through the Soviet gulag system to save her.

What looks like a straight-forward story of revenge, however, is far more complicated. It turns out that the plot targeting Leo and his former colleagues is supported by unreformed Stalinists who hope to undermine Khrushchev's reforms.

The sprawling tale takes Demidov from the treacherous underbelly of Moscow to the frozen hell of a Siberian gulag and the rebellious streets of 1956 Budapest in a race to save his family and his soul. Smith has crafted a tale that's eerily plausible and utterly addictive.