Product Description
In the final months of the Second World War, one strategic question above all occupies the Allies: which liberating army will be the first to march into Berlin. On the western front, Montgomery lobbies for the honour, while Eisenhower becomes more and more determined to thwart him and put an American general -- Bradley or Patton -- in charge of the final thrust; in the east, Stalin's armies advance steadily and ruthlessly towards the apotheosis of their vengeance. David L. Robbins orchestrates the story of the final months of war through the eyes of a gallery of characters both invented and real. We see the western front through the eyes of an American war photographer; Berlin through a mother and daughter hiding a Jewish refugee in the cellar of their house; the eastern advance through soldiers in a punishment battalion, whose fate is to lead every assault. This is another brilliantly authentic and compulsively readable war novel, a worthy successor to WAR OF THE RATS.

Synopsis
In the final months of the Second World War, one strategic question above all occupies the Allies: which liberating army will be the first to march into Berlin. On the western front, Montgomery lobbies for the honour, while Eisenhower becomes more and more determined to thwart him and put an American general -- Bradley or Patton -- in charge of the final thrust; in the east, Stalin's armies advance steadily and ruthlessly towards the apotheosis of their vengeance. David L. Robbins orchestrates the story of the final months of war through the eyes of a gallery of characters both invented and real. We see the western front through the eyes of an American war photographer; Berlin through a mother and daughter hiding a Jewish refugee in the cellar of their house; the eastern advance through soldiers in a punishment battalion, whose fate is to lead every assault. This is another brilliantly authentic and compulsively readable war novel, a worthy successor to WAR OF THE RATS.

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3 Reviews 5 star:  (1) 4 star:    (0) 3 star:  (1) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:  (1)           Average Customer Review (3 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   2 of 2 people found the following review helpful: An interesting read., 7 Mar 2001 By  sjf_geologist@hotmail.com (Crawley, West Sussex.) - See all my reviews Set during the closing months of the war against Germany, the story is split between the three main allies; Britain, USA and Russia as they determine the post-war fate of Germany. Telling it from three different perspectives does tend to give the storyline a 'bitty' feel as it jumps from character to character and makes it hard to become involved with any one of them. Unlike the author's previous novel, War of the Rats, I found reading harder-going in places and it didn't seem to flow as well. The main thrust of this book seems to be the development of the Iron Curtain across Europe as the allied coalition fractured and the Russians were given Berlin. In this respect I think the Epilogue may have been better served to explain the division of Berlin and Germany immediately after the war However, the tension that must have been felt by Berliners as the Russians closed in, was well portrayed and shows how the civilian population suffered as well as the armed forces. For this, I would nudge it to 3 1/2 stars. An interesting story and it makes you wonder how recent hisory may have been different if the Americans and British had moved in on the capital before the Russians.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: A novel of powerful images, 7 Feb 2004 By  Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews<