MAN BOOKER PRIZE LONGLIST

SIX DOWN, SEVEN TO GO

CHILD 44

Tom Rob Smith - Simon & Schuster

Another first-timer and another remarkable read. This one surprised me because the writing is sort of a cross between Ian Rankin and Lee Child. That is to say it is crime fiction crossed with a thriller, and at times I must add quite gruesome and violent.

Because of the snobbery surrounding crime fiction in literary circles one doesn't really expect to find such an accessible and popular style novel in the Man Booker longlist because it is a pretty literary affair. I can almost hear the British literati

tut-tutting from here!

This novel which is almost in unputdownable territory is set in Russia in 1953 in the months before and after the bloody Stalinist rule came to an end. What appaling days they were for the citizens of that giant conglomerate of a nation as it was then. Fear and suspicion, treachery, hypocrisy, total lack of justice, violence and gulags were part of every day life. Paranoia was rife.

And of course the Soviet system would not concede that such things as murder and prostitution, capitalist social evils, existed under the communist system so when a serial murderer starts killing and mutilating chilren across the country the local authorities cannot report them as murders so there is no way central authorities know what is going on.

The author partly based his novel on the real case of Andrei Chikalito who murdered some 50 people in Russia through the 70's and 80's. At the end of the book in his list of futher reading he includes details of the book that carried the story of the real-life investigation into that case should anyone wish to know more.

An excellent, entertaining, often scary read, perfect if you have a long plane journey, but for my money I cannot see it making the shortlist; nevertheless my congratulations to the author getting this far against all the odds.

Now it is on to number seven on my list, The Clothes on their Backs by Linda Grant. My chances of getting through them all before the 9 September shorlist announcent are looking slight.