The Child Thief
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
'This is a pursuit thriller of the highest quality, reminiscent of the classic of the genre, Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male' Irish Independent
'Both an engrossing thriller and the story of a man struggling in the grip of historical events that he only partially understands' Sunday Times
In the snow, death is not the coldest thing waiting for you...
From out of the whiteness, a dark figure comes...
December, 1930, Ukraine. After the horrors of war, Luka wants a quiet life with his family. His village has, so far, remained hidden from the advancing Soviet brutality - but everything changes the day a stranger arrives, pulling a sled bearing a terrible cargo: the bodies of two children. When the villagers' fear turns deadly, they think they have saved themselves. And then a little girl vanishes.
Luka is the only man with the skills to find the stolen child in these frozen lands. And though his toughest enemy is the man he tracks through the harsh winter landscape, his strongest bond is a promise to his family back home...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British author Smith (Dry Season) makes his U.S. debut with this highly atmospheric thriller set during the winter of 1930 in the Soviet Union. One day, a wounded stranger pulling a sled stumbles into Vyriv, a remote Ukrainian village. Two dead children lie on the sled, their bodies mutilated in a way that suggests cannibalism. The stranger soon dies, yet during his brief stay, nine-year-old Dariya goes missing into the nearby forest, the mythical home of "Baba Yaga," an old hag who eats children. As snow falls the next morning, the girl's uncle, WWI veteran Luka Mikhailovich Sidorov, gives chase with his twin 17-year-old sons. Days later, just as the three are closing in on their quarry, government agents capture Luka, who's subsequently interrogated and tortured. He manages to escape with a few clues to Dariya's disappearance and resumes his search. From the arresting opening to the tense finale, Smith doesn't hit a false note in this captivating tale of the power of the human spirit when pushed to the brink.
