LAST TRAIN TO FREEDOM by Deborah Swift @swiftstory

5 GOLD stars

On Amazon (universal link)
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: a favourite author, I was waiting for it!

In a Nutshell: WWII - perilous escape from NKVD and Nazis

After a harrowing escape from the Nazis in their home country of Poland, Zofia, twin brother Jacek and their Uncle Tata have found a home in Lithuania, along with many other Jewish refugees.  Alas, here they face a new danger - the Russian army, bulldozing their way through anything they deem to be anti-communist.

Once they realise that resistance is futile, the Japanese consul is their only hope for visas to travel on the Trans-Siberian express, away from imminent danger.  As well as escaping, Zofia has another mission to complete - the delivery of a secret package to officials in Tokyo.  The problem is that there are others who want to put a spanner in the works; some who appear to be helpful are not what they seem.

I was delighted to find out that Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Lithuania, was a real person who, against orders from his country, issued thousands of visas to Lithuanians and Polish refugees who would have otherwise been captured by the Russians or the Nazis.  Deborah Swift has written a piece about it HERE.

I loved this book from start to finish; it's utterly gripping and I could never guess what might happen next.  More than anything else, it illustrates what a dark, dangerous place mainland Europe was during the first half of the 20th Century, and the bravery of so many who fought on the side of good, against the forces of evil that were intent on eliminating their existence.  Highly, highly recommended - definitely my favourite of Deborah Swift's novels set in World War II.

THE LONG WALK by Slavomir Racwicz

4.5 out of 5 stars

On Amazon (universal link)
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: I read a review of it by RosieAmber.

In a Nutshell: The allegedly true story of Slavomir Rawicz, who escaped from a Siberian labour camp during World War II, and, with comrades, trekked thousands of miles to reach safety.  Fact or fiction?

I'd read half of this book before I looked at it on Goodreads, and was so disappointed to find that there is dispute over the veracity of the story.  Some say that there is no record of Rawicz having been incarcerated at the gulag mentioned, but I wondered about that.  Service in Siberia was in itself a punishment for Russian soldiers who had fallen short of the demonic Communist party's expectations; perhaps successful escapees were scratched from the records for the officers' own safety?

The journey takes the small party from Siberia to Mongolia, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, the Himalayas and finally to India.  I was so absorbed in the story and found it completely convincing until I saw the comments on Goodreads.  After this, I questioned everything.  I am not sure if this says more about me than the book!  There was a moment, early on, when I wondered if I would have been so engrossed if it had been fiction; I was able to answer that question later.  Nevertheless, it's fascinating and a real page turner.

One part that made me wonder was the section in the Gobi desert when Rawicz and his friends survived for up to 12 days without water.  Two of them died, yes, but 12 days?  On the other hand, the longest known survival without is 18 days (yes, of course I looked it up!).  And some, such as Ernest Shackleton, have talked about the 'Third Man Factor', during which they felt, in circumstances of extreme danger and hardship, that there was another, unseen being walking with them.

If all true, it's the most incredible memoir of escape, resilience, brotherhood and so much more, in which I often felt the detail itself spoke volumes.  If not, it's still a great story.  

THE DRAU RIVER FLOWS TO SIBERIA: The Victims of Victory by Marina Osipova

5 out of 5 stars

On Amazon (universal link)
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: it was submitted to Rosie's Book Review Team, of which I am a member.

In a Nutshell: The story of two people who survived Stalin's Siberian gulags, and the fate of the Cossacks under the care of the Allies in WWII.

I feel quite exhausted having just finished this book, a lengthy novel in which I was engrossed throughout.  It centres around what happened to anti-Soviet Russian nationals at the end of WWII - mostly the Cossacks of Ukraine and other 'enemies' of the Allies - at the hands of the victors: the British and Americans as well as Stalin's Red Army, who also assured Germans that they would remain in the hands of the Western Powers.  All in the name of 'repatriation'. 

Anna and Zakhary, finally set free from incarceration under the most brutal of regimes, are strangers who meet by chance on an isolated peninsula of the Ob River, in 1955.  While waiting many hours for a boat, they tell each other their stories, immediately taking the reader back to the end of the war and the unforeseen dangers that lay along the paths they were about to walk.  

Zakhary was a German national whose Cossack father had taken his family to live in Germany.  Anna found herself separated from her family when the Wehrmacht occupied her town, and was offered the chance to work in Germany; sadly, she believed lies about what a good move this would be.  At the end of the war, though, she finds that nothing she experienced in the last few years has prepared her for what is to come.

The slippery hand of fate takes both of them to the Siberian Gulags; although this is fiction, you cannot help but be aware, throughout, that everything Anna and Zakhary went through was experienced by hundreds of thousands, many of whom would never see freedom again.

This isn't just about the evils of Communism, or of war, but man's inhumanity to man.  My only (tiny!) complaint is the occasional use of American English.  Words like 'normalcy' 'cookies' and 'fall' (rather than autumn) never sit right with me when the book is about European or Eurasian people.  But I doubt anyone will mind that as much as I do, if at all, and this really is a terrific book.

Here is an article about the Lienz massacre in Austria, in which the Cossacks were betrayed by the British army, and another one HERE.  Below, a short video.

RISE OF THE ENEMY by Rob Sinclair

4 out of 5 stars

Espionage thriller

On Amazon UK HERE
On Amazon.com HERE

Reviewed by me as part of Rosie Amber's Book Review Team

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this at first, as espionage thrillers are not a usual reading choice for me, but I liked the cover!  I didn't realise it was a sequel when I first began to read it, but the necessary backstory is provided artfully, in an unobtrusive way, and it works fine as a stand alone.

Carl Logan is an agent working for the JIA, the Joint Intelligence Agency, which employs both US and UK agents.  Rise of The Enemy is based around his capture and escape from the Russians and his realisation that he cannot trust his own people, either.

I wasn't grabbed by the story until it got to the 'three months later' bit of Chapter 4, when, for me, it went up by about ten notches and I became totally absorbed, looking forward to getting back to it when I had to put it down.  The structure of the part in Siberia in which Carl Logan escapes from his Russian captors is one I like: chapters alternating between the present, and flashbacks of an ongoing story that leads up to that present.  I loved reading about Siberia, too; it's clearly been well researched.

The book is very professionally presented, which is always a big plus for me; I don't think I found one proofreading or editing error, which is practically unheard of in a Kindle book, even for the traditionally published.   I read in the Q & A with Rob Sinclair in the back that he loves spy thriller books, films and TV series, and it shows; he's obviously very au fait with the genre, and thus there are a few clichés to be found in this story, but not too many.  

My only problem with this book is that, despite it being extremely well written as a drama, it stopped being so thrilling at around 60%, after which the suspense only made me think 'hmm' instead of 'oh my God, WHAT is going to happen NEXT?'  You know those bits in programmes like 24, when Jack Bauer overcomes four enemies against all odds, in a seemingly hopeless situation?  Carl Logan does this sort of thing, too, but it's all a bit laboured.  Sinclair has painstakingly described every action, down to which hand he jerked into which arm, in such a way that it's just an account, a sequence of events, and not action packed.  Some bits that should have been in-your-face thrilling were actually quite boring; if I had not been reading the book to review I would have skipped them, and just gone to the end of the section to find out who was still alive.  The beginning of the book is written in a very dramatic way.  A suspenseful way.  With short sentences.  To add impact and drama.  And it works, but doesn't carry on throughout the book.  My interest in the plot tailed off towards the end.

To sum up:  A bit less detail, a bit less repetition, a bit more punch, and this book would be excellent.  If this is your favourite genre, I'd definitely recommend it because it's intelligently written, feasible and well thought out.  I suspect, too, that Rob Sinclair's writing will develop positively the more he writes; the talent is obviously there.