TOM ROB SMITH Child 44 ***(*)

I don't know how this book got on the Booker longlist and the Costa shortlist, because it's not great literature. But it is a cracking and very different thriller - and just what I needed after the last two duds I'd tried to read.

It's set in Stalin's Soviet Union, where crime (other than disloyalty to the state) does not officially exist. The hero is Leo, an officer in what was to become the KGB. He believes he's helping build a perfect society and that the brutal things he and his colleagues are forced to do is a necessary evil. Then he uncovers what appears to be a serial child-killer on the loose...

His desire to investigate the case puts him under suspicion, and he and his wife have to chase the killer while being on the run from the state authorities.

The melodramatic ending spoiled it a bit for me, but it's a real page-turner.