The End of War: A Novel of the Race for Berlin - Hardcover

Robbins, David L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553108301 ISBN 13: 9780553108309

Publisher: Bantam, 2000

Synopsis

Berlin, January  1945
The war draws to a close, but the fight for a vanquished city--and for history--is just beginning.

On the heels of the critically  acclaimed War of the Rats , the new master of historical suspense, David L. Robbins, turns his compelling vision on the waning months of World War II, when world leaders  engage in a dicey  game of cat  and mouse  to ultimately determine the fate of the second half of the twentieth century.

The End of War
In the final months of the war in Europe, the last act of a five-year conflagration is  about to be played out.  Allied generals  move their war-hardened  armies  around the mortally wounded Nazi military machine.  But strategies  are being  formed on a greater scale  than even generals  can  imagine. While Churchill  fumes helplessly, Roosevelt  makes  crucial decisions  that will cede  Berlin to Stalin and the Russians.

The stakes are no less critical for ordinary men and women, fighting to live another  day. On the ground  are young  Russian soldiers driven by vengeance  into the teeth of the still-deadly Nazi army;  American  forces push forward under  the  political  motives of a canny commander- in- chief; and the British, aloof, at odds with their Yankee  counterparts, see in these last fateful moves  a devastating  betrayal by Washington and Moscow.

The End of War vividly animates the giants who shaped history and breathes life into the heartbreaking struggles of those who merely lived it. From the chaos of the trenches  on the eastern front, to the desperation   of a single  Jewish man  hidden in a Berlin basement by a terrified mother and daughter,  to the burning  ambition of an American photojournalist  determined  to  capture  on film the defining moment  of the war, Robbins ushers us into the sweep of history  and  the  drama  of the  human  face of war.

An epic  novel exploding  with the urgency  of battle  and  history in the  making,  here  is The End of War.

About this title

Review

Henry James called the novel a "loose, baggy monster," and the challenges of the genre are evident in David L. Robbins's The End of War. Robbins won acclaim in 1999 for War of the Rats, a knockdown-dragout retelling of the bloody Russian defense of Stalingrad against Nazi assault. Here, in The End of War, he weaves together six points of view as the final months of World War II march inexorably toward a familiar conclusion. The great strength of Robbins's novel is also its chief fault: the plot simply can't sustain the splintering effect of so many points of view. Ultimately, the star of this novel is war itself, not the novel's three representative civilians or its "Olympian gods," Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill. Particularly in the last chapters, World War II images flicker before our eyes like fragments of vintage newsreels. Robbins draws explicitly from those eerie images when Life magazine photojournalist Charley Bandy visits a death camp heaped with barely alive bodies.

Robbins demonstrates a mastery of his subject that should enthrall World War II buffs, and splendid moments are scattered liberally throughout the book, as when German cellist Lottie escapes a burning death by crawling through a narrow tunnel into the next bomb shelter, only to discover she's left behind her cherished, circa-1750 cello. Another is certainly when Roosevelt dreams of sledding in the moment before he is wheeled before Congress in his first public appearance in his wheelchair. Though the Churchill chapters routinely downplay that statesman's wit and shrewdness, gratifying moments of intense character study abound in Robbins's book.

By the time the Allied forces finally converge in Berlin, Robbins has given us enough information to appreciate both the extraordinary diplomatic maneuvers and their effects on ordinary citizens' lives. Robbins deliberately constructed The End of War along the lines of a Greek tragedy: "the gods discuss the affairs of man, then their Olympian intents are played out at human level." As a rule, the ordinary folks are more compelling and believable than the real historical figures. Perhaps this is because those figures are over-determined in the public imagination, whereas Lottie, the Russian soldier Ilya, and the American photographer Charley are rooted and credible--the sources of suspense in the novel.

Although the plot of The End of War converges neatly in Berlin, that unity of time and place does not tighten the loose macramé that knits Robbins's story together. Lottie and Ilya change in surprising ways during the ravages of war, however, and that character development gives the novel an epic feel. Fans of World War II will enjoy Robbins's fully realized world; fans of less specialized thrillers might enjoy the warmth and acuity of the assorted players. --Kathi Inman Berens

From the Back Cover

"Gripping ... breathtaking."
-- New York Post

"Robbins renders his real people superbly ... a notable accomplishment. ... Brilliant storytelling by an author ... in absolute control of his material."
-- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Don't miss David L. Robbins's first stunning novel of WWII:

War of the Rats

Available now from Bantam Books

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0553108301
• ISBN 13: 9780553108309
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416