I picked this as I really enjoyed [b:Child 44|2161733|Child 44|Tom Rob Smith|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255690645s/2161733.jpg|2167258] which is also set in Stalinist Russia, but this book never really gripped me. To much of what happened was predictable. A really obvious bad guy, people not being who they claim to be, not nice people getting exactly what they deserve, lots of horrible things happening to our hero but he gets the result in the end. All in all fairly undemanding stuff.