War of the Rats

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a good candidate for the thriller of the summer award… gives a compelling and graphic sense of the heroism-filled nightmare called Stalingrad…A readable, gritty adventure story." —The New York Times

A supporting character siding with the Red Army is Captain Igor Semyonovich Danilov, a reporter for the Red Star, a Russian newspaper. He joins Zaitsev at the school and on a few of his missions to report Zaitsev's heroic events and ingenious tactics as a sniper. Danilov eventually is shot down by Thorvald when he spots Thorvald through a periscope and jumps up to yell. There are other memorable characters like Nikki, the young German soldier, a dairy farmer from Westphalia ; Tania Chernova, a partisan fighter from Belarus and Danilov, a Russian commisar. German soldiers call the battle Rattenkrieg, War of the Rats . The combat is horrific, as soldiers die in the smoking cellars and trenches of a ruined city. Through this twisted carnage stalk two men—one Russian, one German—each the top sniper in his respective army. These two marksmen are equally matched in both skill and tenacity. Each man has his own mission: to find his counterpart—and kill him. try to get the history right. Particularily such obscure facts as which month Germany invaded the Soviet Union. And that is just one of the small mistakes that add up to make this novel not a very good piece of historical fiction. There are *many* errors about World War 2 history that even an amateur such as myself found glaringly obvious and severely detracted from what should be a historical scene set in Stalingrad. I will not detail all of them because they are simply too many and the novel does not work as a work of historical fiction, though it might fall into the genre of alternate history.David Robbins has a way with words. He has a way with characters. He is by far a master of character development, a task made all the more difficult when one is constrained by reality. Vasha Zaitsev, Tania Chernova, Nikki Mond and Heinz Thorwald are all historical characters in a compelling setting. You can't help but bond with the two protagonists. You share their fears, their joys, their passions, and their accomplishments. German soldiers call the battle Rattenkrieg, War of the Rats. The combat is horrific, as soldiers die in the smoking cellars and trenches of a ruined city. Through this twisted carnage stalk two men—one Russian, one German—each the top sniper in his respective army. These two marksmen are equally matched in both skill and tenacity. Each man has his own mission: to find his counterpart—and kill him.

In the book Thorvald describes himself as a coward who hides behind the lines and steals the lives of others. He grew up as a trap shooter and was known as one of the best shooters in the German Army. Fast-paced and explosive, War of the Rats is a stunning amalgam of deepest history and thrilling fiction. Colonel Heinz Thorvald was joined by Corporal Nikki Mond in his search to find and kill Vasily Zaytsev. Nikki acted as a spotter and general accomplice to Thorvald. hours - are you kidding me! If this was just 6 hours it'd be great, then maybe I'd give it 4-5 stars instead of 1 star. But the author continuously goes insane with 1-3 minutes of endless annoying nonsensical loquacity, self talk and personal questions of no relative value. If you enjoy quality writing, then you will be forced to fast forward 30 seconds like every 2-3 minutes or else you will be rolling your eyes and saying to yourself: are you kidking me!. Mr. Robbins doe an excellent job in describing not only the supposed duel between Zaitsez and Thorvald (which is still being debated by historians) but his ability to paint the picture of a city ravaged by the opposing forces is phenomenal. He puts you in the heart of the dieing city. Can you imagine the closets metropolitan town in your vicinity being decimated to hulks of sagging I-beams, burning timbers and crumbled concrete structures. Yes, it is worse than the current destruction we witnessed in Joplin, Mi and Tuscaloosa,Ala (all weather related).The first part of the book introduces the reader to the stories’ four main characters- snipers Vasily Zaitsev, Tania Chernova, and Heinz Thorvald, as well as German corporal Nikki Mond. The book focuses on the snipers of Stalingrad, beginning with Nikki witnessing a German lieutenant being shot by sniper- a sniper who turns out to be Zaitsev. Tania joins Zaitsev’s newly formed sniper school, and the Germans send for their best sniper, Heinz Thorvald, to kill Zaitsev. The majority of the book follows the duel between Zaitsev and Thorvald as Tania assists Zaitsev and Nikki assists Thorvald, and ends with the fates of Tania’s and Nikki’s characters.

The writing was beautiful and poignant, the plot hooked me, the characters moved me, the well-researched historical details fascinated me. None of the characters is a wanton, laughing killer, as I think I'd feared I'd find in a war novel; in their own ways, they all recognize the gravity, terror, and tragedy of the war, but without being whiny or unrealistically philosophical. The relationship between Tania and Vasily is genuinely romantic - and it's the historical real deal, not something the author threw in, Hollywood-style. (Indeed, I've read that the movie added a love triangle - as if, "we're in the middle of wartime Stalingrad being hunted by a Nazi supersniper" isn't enough tension for the relationship.) A frighteningly realistic patchwork depicting the long siege that changed the course of the war. Based on a true story, the novel deftly captures an extraordinary time and place in history…[in a] vivid, authentic representation of men of unusual skill and focus in the midst of a barbarous war." —Richmond-Times DispatchThe final chapter features Nikki Mond, Thorvald's accomplice while he was alive. Nikki is wandering about the German camps, talking with soldiers and thinking about the war. The German's are surrounded by a huge amount of Russian troops and they have almost no chance of escaping without being taken prisoner. Their resources were being depleted and some men had resorted to cannibalism. He sums it up with one good thought: David L. Robbins’s novel War of the Rats tells the story of the siege of Stalingrad from a very personal nature. One character sets the tone by asking, “Will this war overlook nothing? Is it beginning to hunt for us now by name, one at a time?”. The story centers around four viewpoint characters- two Russian, two German, and tells the story of how the battle for the city became a battle between two snipers.