Child 44

MGB officer Leo is a man who never questions the Party Line. He arrests whomever he is told to arrest. He dismisses the horrific death of a young boy because he is told to, because he believes the Party stance that there can be no murder in Communist Russia. Leo is the perfect soldier of the regime. But suddenly his confidence that everything he does serves a great good is shaken. He is forced to watch a man he knows to be innocent be brutally tortured. And then he is told to arrest his own wife. Leo understands how the State works: Trust and check, but check particularly on those we trust. He faces a stark choice: his wife or his life. And still the killings of children continue ...

Set in

• ★
  Moscow · Soviet Union

  Stalin-era Soviet Union 1952, Moscow primary setting
  ★ primary
• ★
  Ukraine · Ukraine

  Leo's childhood during the 1933 Holodomor famine, opening flashback
  ★ primary
• ★
  Berlin · Germany

  1945 Reichstag flag-raising flashback, Leo's Red Army service
  ★ primary
• ★
  Volsk · Russia

  Leo and Raisa's exile posting, further child murders discovered
  ★ primary
• Rostov-on-Don · Soviet Union

  Secondary setting in Stalin-era Soviet Union