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A review by storyman
The Child Thief by Dan Smith
5.0
A novel about how ideology dehumanizes everyone it touches, without losing sight of strong characters torn by the choices they have to make.
This is an excellent, terrifying novel which invests heavily in its characters. A proper page turner.
It starts with a man, half dead from a bullet in his abdomen, dragging a sledge with two kids under a cover. They’re both dead, one with her leg cut and eaten.
The protagonist, Luka, immediately sees the terror this man has brought. The village, with memories of the Ukrainian famine and acts of cannibalism to survive, are up in arms at his presence. The man can’t defend himself as he is passed out. Luka demands that the man has a right to defend himself against the village’s belief that the man killed the children and cannibalized one, but Luka knows what fearful crowds do. He witnessed it in the army as the Russian Revolution took hold of the country and ate its own as paranoia took hold.
The novel jumps right in with a conundrum to make your blood run cold. Do you kill this man to satisfy your perceptions, or do you let him wake up and answer for the horror he brought into their lives, maybe even risk their own children in doing so?
Smith does a brilliant job at playing both sides, though you err on Luka’s due process side as events turn ugly and a child from the village is stolen.
Russia’s history seems to be one long tragedy. The Child Thief, set in the 30s, stamps that impression deep. Luka takes his sons on an epic rescue mission for the girl, fearful for his family, of the shadow of the communist machine as it descends on his as-yet untouched village, and his struggles with the past as he remembers the atrocities he’s witnessed as a sniper in to be imperial army, then the Red variety. The Child Thief turns out to be a match for Luka, including a taste for war, which Luka fights internally.
There’s not a moment in this book which doesn’t make your stomach hurt. The stakes are so high. The missing girl is Luka’s niece and might be eaten. His sons could end up dead. The communists might find the village and take his daughter and wife. And if the Child Thief or the communists don’t kill everybody, the snow might do the job for them.
A great book that grabs right from the start.
This is an excellent, terrifying novel which invests heavily in its characters. A proper page turner.
It starts with a man, half dead from a bullet in his abdomen, dragging a sledge with two kids under a cover. They’re both dead, one with her leg cut and eaten.
The protagonist, Luka, immediately sees the terror this man has brought. The village, with memories of the Ukrainian famine and acts of cannibalism to survive, are up in arms at his presence. The man can’t defend himself as he is passed out. Luka demands that the man has a right to defend himself against the village’s belief that the man killed the children and cannibalized one, but Luka knows what fearful crowds do. He witnessed it in the army as the Russian Revolution took hold of the country and ate its own as paranoia took hold.
The novel jumps right in with a conundrum to make your blood run cold. Do you kill this man to satisfy your perceptions, or do you let him wake up and answer for the horror he brought into their lives, maybe even risk their own children in doing so?
Smith does a brilliant job at playing both sides, though you err on Luka’s due process side as events turn ugly and a child from the village is stolen.
Russia’s history seems to be one long tragedy. The Child Thief, set in the 30s, stamps that impression deep. Luka takes his sons on an epic rescue mission for the girl, fearful for his family, of the shadow of the communist machine as it descends on his as-yet untouched village, and his struggles with the past as he remembers the atrocities he’s witnessed as a sniper in to be imperial army, then the Red variety. The Child Thief turns out to be a match for Luka, including a taste for war, which Luka fights internally.
There’s not a moment in this book which doesn’t make your stomach hurt. The stakes are so high. The missing girl is Luka’s niece and might be eaten. His sons could end up dead. The communists might find the village and take his daughter and wife. And if the Child Thief or the communists don’t kill everybody, the snow might do the job for them.
A great book that grabs right from the start.