The Secret Speech is Tom Rob Smith's follow-up to the critically acclaimed and wildly successful Child 44. It's now three years since Leo and his wife, Raisa, solved the murders of Child 44, and Leo received permission to start a homicide squad. He is much happier in this job than in his previous role arresting and sometimes murdering those who did not share his commitment to the State. Leo and Raisa have started a family by adopting two sisters whose parents were murdered.
But all is not wonderful in Leo's world. The older girl holds Leo accountable for her parents' deaths. She stands over Leo with a kitchen knife held to his chest as he sleeps, waiting for the courage to kill him. Now to make matters worse, someone from Leo's past is killing or driving his former colleagues to suicide. The public reading of Kruschev's "Secret Speech" denouncing the activities of the secret police under Stalin triggers a mad rush of incidients that are all tied to Leo's past.
Leo will find that one particular person from his past is set on retribution at all costs, and the State is seeking retribution for past wrongs as well. Soon Leo's department is closed, and he is forced to return to the job he hated. But is the State really changing how they treat dissidents or simply hoping to sweep their sins under the rug even as they continue to punish those who speak against them? Soon fewer people are transported to the gulags, but those who are left in them remember who sent them there, and Leo will always be guilty in the eyes of those around him for being "one of them."
The Secret Speech is much more of a thriller than Child 44. The first in the series could be considered a police procedural set in a world where there is no police procedure for investigators to follow. Although the accelerated pacing of this book will leave thriller fans happy, this outing does lack some of the elements which made Child 44 so strong.
Raisa is not as central to this plot. Although very ambitious, the plot is somewhat predictable. The Secret Speech is a very good read overall, adding more humanity to a time and place many remember as being full of cruelty. Smith's next book in the series is an eagerly anticipated read by me.
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