Amazon Product Description:

The Soviet Union 1956: after Stalin's death, a violent regime is beginning to fracture. Stalin's successor Khrushchev pledges reform. But there are forces at work that are unable to forgive or forget the past. Leo Demidov, former MGB officer, is facing his own turmoil. His adopted daughters have yet to forgive him for his part in the brutal murder of their parents. They are not alone. Leo, his wife, and their family are in grave danger from someone with a grudge. Someone transformed beyond recognition into the perfect model of vengeance. Leo's desperate mission to save his family will take him from the harsh Siberian Gulags, to the depths of the criminal underworld, to the centre of the Hungarian uprising - and into a hell where redemption is as brittle as glass.

About the Author:

Tom Rob Smith was born in l979 to a Swedish mother and an English father and was brought up in London where he still lives. He graduated from Cambridge in 2001 and spent a year in Italy on a creative writing scholarship. Tom has worked as a screenwriter for the past five years, including a six-month stint in Phnom Penh storylining Cambodia's first ever soap. His first novel, CHILD 44, was longlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the inaugural Desmond Elliott Prize, and won the Crime Writers' Association's Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best adventure/thriller novel of 2008, and the American edition won Best Debut at the International Thriller Awards and Best Debut at the Strand Magazine awards.

I loved Child 44 & this too is a really gripping, if somewhat terrifying, novel about a Stalinist Russia. This book is a sequel and picks up the story of Leo & his family 3 years later. Both stories in the novels are very personal to the character & although reformed Leo has to face up to his past & save his newly aquired family. I was really interested to read the author's interview at the end of the book as he said that the TV series 24 was a big influence in writing the first novel but in many ways I found this one more styled to that kind of story. The pace is fascinatingly relentless, full of action and studded with many twists & turns. A really good read, highly recommended.

Hoping to pass onto Giz-Angel at the Uncon, been waiting to give this to her for ages. x

Thanks sweetie you are the best xx