Leo is a respected member of the State Security organization in Stalinist Russia. However, he begins to lose faith in the Soviet doctrine when he realizes that he has arrested an innocent veterinarian and caused several unwarranted executions in the process. When his doubt surfaces, he is asked to investigate his beautiful wife Raisa as a possible traitor. This loyalty test ultimately results in the banishment of Leo and Raisa to a manufacturing town and substandard living conditions. There Leo comes to realize that a series of senseless child murders across the country are linked but have been blamed on a variety of unfortunate suspects, because the idea of a serial killer in the proletariat paradise is unacceptable to the powers-that-be. What's really fascinating about this book is not only the fact that horrific crimes are virtually swept under the rug but that those people who don't play along are enemies of the State. I have to assume that this depiction is fairly accurate, and the question of how a government gets away with this is thought-provoking. Constituent compliance is a requirement and a reality. It's bizarre that perceived party loyalty dictates one's living conditions and workplace status in a supposedly Marxist society. The book presents farmers and other rural residents as being more likely to buck the system, since the restrictive government seems to be more of an obscure concept that has no positive bearing on their lives. These portrayals commanded my attention much more than the "thriller" aspects of the novel, which were fairly typical in that everything is wrapped up neatly at the end.
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