Tom Rob Smith’s The Secret Speech is the sequel to his Child 44, in which Leo Demidov is a state security officer with the MGB (later called the KGB) in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Leo gets to the bottom of a series of crimes, serial murders of children, at a time when murders were not talked about and denied because of the claim that there was less crime under Communism.

The Secret Speech is three years after the end of Child 44 with Leo, his wife, and their two adopted daughters. It is 1956, Stalin is gone, and Khrushchev has replaced him. Khrushchev is more liberal and criticizes Stalin’s rule and tactics. And now the people who were persecuted, jailed, and tortured under Stalin are looking for revenge.

I praise The Secret Speech just as I did Child 44. Like Child 44, The Secret Speech is historical fiction at its finest, i.e. it’s a not-put-downable novel that is so well researched you might find it difficult to distinguish fiction from fact.

I advise that you read Child 44 before you read The Secret Speech. You’ll appreciate more the feelings of Leo’s wife and daughters, which are key to understanding The Secret Speech.