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The Secret Speech (2009)

by Tom Rob Smith(Favorite Author)

3.75 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0446402400 (ISBN13: 9780446402408)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Grand Central Publishing

series

Leo Demidov

review 1: I read "The Secret Speech" only a few weeks after finishing Tom Rob Smith's first installment, "Child 44," and think my interpretation of "Secret Speech" suffered from the proximity. While I enjoyed the book, it felt too similar -- and less enthralling by comparison -- than the original Leo Demidov thriller. "Secret Speech" is definitely a good read, and has many twists and turns and deception along the route, but its second half set in Budapest wasn't as crisp as much to have come before in "Child 44" and the first half of "Secret Speech." A good effort, but ultimately not as satisfying as the first.
review 2: Definitely not as good as Child 44 or Agent 6, Smith makes his hero/antihero Leo Demidov question all of the work he did for the state as a "security of... moreficer" when Khruschev delivers a speech denouncing the horrors/terrors carried out under Stalin. This clever premise promises much more than it can deliver, and much of the tale becomes diluted in the story of Demidov's adopted children. The novel starts strong but fizzles as it goes. Kudos, however, for it's inclusion of the Budapest uprising of 1956. less

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