The Second Objective - Hardcover

Frost, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 140130222X ISBN 13: 9781401302221

Publisher: Hyperion, 2007

Synopsis

Bestselling author Mark Frost makes a triumphant return to fiction with this riveting World War II thriller, based on a shocking real-life German operation run by "the most dangerous man in Europe"

Fall 1944. Germany is losing, and the Americans are starting to hope theyll be home for Christmas. Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny, "Hitler's Commando," famed for his daring rescue of the imprisoned Mussolini, has just received orders for Operation Greif: He is to assemble a new brigade of 2,000 men, all of whom speak English, and send them behind Allied lines disguised as GIs, where they will wreak havoc in advance of a savage new offensive. And from those men, Skorzeny is to select a smaller group, made up of the twenty most highly skilled commandos fluent in American culture, to attempt an even more sinister mission -- the second objective -- which, if completed, not only would change the course of the war, but would change the course of history.

Filled with real characters and details only recently released by the United States military, The Second Objective is historical fiction at its most pulse-pounding, its most unpredictable, and its most compulsively readable.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Frost is the author of the critically acclaimed The Greatest Game Ever Played, The Grand Slam, and the bestselling The List of 7, The 6 Messiahs, and Before I Wake. He received a Writer's Guild Award and an Emmy nomination for his work as executive story editor on the acclaimed television series Hill Street Blues, and was the co-creator and executive producer of the ABC television series Twin Peaks. He lives in Los Angeles and upstate New York.

Reviews

Using WWII's Battle of the Bulge as background, Frost (The List of Seven) spins real-life and fictional characters into thriller gold. Hitler assigns his most feared commando, Lt. Col. Otto Skorzeny, to lead a 2,000-man brigade disguised as American troops in Operation Autumn Mist, a last-ditch effort to defeat the western Allies in late 1944 by breaking through the lightly defended Belgium-Luxembourg region. Within this German unit is a special group of 20 commandos who will face almost certain death trying to achieve a secret "second objective." Opposing this force is a U.S. army made up of tired veterans, green troops and one tough MP with the criminal investigation division, Earl Grannit, a New York cop in civilian life. Leading the special contingent of Nazis commandos is SS lieutenant Erich Von Leinsdorf, a supremely intelligent and contemptuously cruel Nazi who will stop at nothing to achieve his objective. Comparisons with Day of the Jackal are inevitable and not amiss. $250,000 marketing; author tour. (May)
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*Starred Review* The idea of Nazi spies behind the lines during World War II remains a potent plot device, especially if, as in Ken Follett's classic Eye of the Needle (1978), the Germans are at least partially sympathetic figures. Frost, who wrote several successful thrillers before turning to golf history (The Greatest Game Ever Played, 2002), draws on the Follett model but introduces several wrinkles of his own. The plot is based on recently declassified documents relating to Operation Greif, a Nazi scheme to send English-speaking Germans, dressed as American GIs, behind the lines in the days prior to the Battle of the Bulge. The plan was to disrupt the Allied response to the German counterattack, but there was a "second objective": send a smaller group of commandos to France to assassinate Eisenhower. Frost builds on the facts by fleshing out the story of two of the would-be assassins: Bernie Oster, an American-born German whose parents returned to the fatherland in 1938, and Erich Von Reinsdorf, a diplomat's son who went on to become an SS officer at Dachau. Bernie wants no part of fighting Americans, but Von Reinsdorf is the real deal: a stone-cold killer trying to live down the fact that his father was part Jewish. Is Bernie, a mere auto mechanic, soldier enough to save Ike? Frost builds the characters beautifully, including a parallel story involving two American MPs, and, like Follett, he somehow manages to generate incredible suspense in the face of historical fact. This is a top-notch blend of espionage tradecraft and pulse-pounding action adventure. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 140130222X
• ISBN 13: 9781401302221
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336