My version: Hardback
Genre: Fiction, World War II, Eastern Front, Poland
Publisher: Mantle, Pan Macmillan
First published: 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4472-5501-7
Pages: 386
Bought
From the cover:
The pain woke him. He was grateful for it. The train had stopped, and somewhere up above them, the drone of aircraft engines filled the night sky. He could almost remember her smile… It must be the morphine… He had managed not to think about her for months now.
1944. Paul Brandt, a soldier in the German army, returns wounded and ashamed from the bloody chaos of the Eastern Front to find his village home much changed and existing in the dark shadow of an SS rest hut – a luxurious retreat for those who manage the concentration camps, run with the help of a small group of female prisoners who, against all odds, have so far survived the war.
When, by chance, Brandt glimpses one of these prisoners, he realizes that he must find a way to access the hut. For inside is the woman to whom his fate has been tied since their arrest five years before, and now he must do all he can to protect her.
But as the Russian offensive moves ever closer, the days of the rest hut and its SS inhabitants are numbered. And while hope – for Brandt and the female prisoners – draws tantalizingly close, the danger too is now greater than ever.
Meanwhile, in a forest to the east, a young female Soviet tank driver awaits her orders to advance…
A quite honest and moving book. Where the story unfolds and Mr Ryan tries to have the realisation of what exactly is going on, dawn on you at the same time as the main character. As he has returned from the front and is somewhat unaware of what has been going on behind the lines, and in the war in general, a lot of the people he meets back in his home villages, know more than he does and are clearly either in denial or ashamed. All comes over very well indeed in William Ryan’s usual excellent, pretty understated really, writing style.
Full of atmosphere, well-drawn characters that are easy to care about – or hate. And there’s a twist. Kind of, of sorts, that you perhaps figure out before the main character does.
All in all, a thoroughly satisfying read, and an interesting addition to my (and perhaps yours) knowledge of the Second World War on the eastern front. Bringing to light the subtleties and emotions felt by the ordinary men and women of (eastern) Germany, in a way that prose fiction, can do better sometimes than factual, non-fiction can.
You can buy The Constant Soldier by William Ryan from Amazon
Couldn't I Just Tell You 