Cold Victory

by Karl Marlantes

Overview

AN AMAZON TOP 10 BOOK OF THE MONTH

From New York Times bestselling author Karl Marlantes comes a propulsive and sweeping novel in which loyalty, friendship, and love are put to the ultimate test

Helsinki, 1947. Finland teeters between the Soviet Union and the West. Everyone is being watched. A wrong look or a wrong word could end in catastrophe. Natalya Bobrova, from Russia, and Louise Koski, from the United States, are young wives of their country’s military attachés. When they meet at an embassy party, their husbands, Arnie and Mikhail, both world-class skiers, drunkenly challenge each other to a friendly – but secret – cross-country wilderness race.

Louise is delighted, but Natalya is worried. Stalin and Beria’s secret police rule with unforgiving brutality. If news of the race gets out and Mikhail loses, Natalya knows it would mean his death, her imprisonment, and the loss of her two children. Meanwhile, Louise, who is childless, uses the race as an opportunity to raise money for a local orphanage, naïve to the danger it will bring to Natalya and her family. Too late to stop Louise’s scheme, a horrified Natalya watches as news of the race spreads across the globe as newspapers and politicians spin it as a symbolic battle: freedom versus communism. Desperate to undo her mistake, Louise must reach Arnie to tell him to throw the race and save Mikhail – but how? The two racers are in a world of their own, unreachable in Finland’s arctic wilderness.

This is another masterful novel from the author of the modern classic MatterhornCold Victory is a triumph.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802161420
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	01/09/2024
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	131,008
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Karl Marlantes graduated from Yale Universityand was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, before serving as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. He is the bestselling author of Matterhorn and What It Is Like to Go to War. He lives in rural Washington.

Editorial Reviews

10/30/2023

Marlantes (Deep River) sets his stirring story of innocents abroad in 1946 Finland as the Cold War is heating up. Arnie Koski is a taciturn Finnish American and champion skier assigned as the military attaché to the American legation in Helsinki. His wife, Louise, is an Oklahoman and former sorority president whose guilelessness contrasts with the savvy machinations of American and Soviet agents who are spying on them. At their first embassy party, Arnie and his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Bobrov, who met as allies during the war, get drunk and challenge each other to a clandestine ski race through Northern Finland. As they prepare for the 500-kilometer course (“their own little Olympics”), Louise attempts to befriend Mikhail’s glamorous and wary wife, Natalya, and, in a subplot that causes the novel to drag, raise money for a Finnish orphanage. Owing to Louise’s carelessness, the ski race gets picked up by the press and spun into a proxy battle between democracy and communism. Louise’s naivete strains credulity, but the novel comes alive in its last third, as the former soldiers finally embark on the race, having agreed on acceptable types and doses of performance enhancing drugs but unprepared for the dire stakes, as Mikhail’s death is all but certain should he lose and embarrass the Soviet Union. Marlantes sticks the landing in this satisfying drama. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Cold Victory:

"Marlantes moves from the jungles of Vietnam to the spectral tundra of a very cold Cold War–era Finland. . . . better than Tom Clancy when it comes to the human element, but he’s similarly fascinated by militaria and historical detail."—Kirkus Reviews

“Marlantes’ well-plotted, briskly moving novel explores the psychological afterlife of war. The men may court death on the tundra, but their needs are uncomplicated. It’s the women who, in building cross-cultural bridges and making impossible sacrifices, truly demonstrate sisu (Finnish for “toughness in the face of hopelessness”).” — Brendan Driscoll, Booklist

“[A] stirring story of innocents abroad in 1946 Finland as the Cold War is heating up… Marlantes sticks the landing in this satisfying drama.”—Publishers Weekly

Praise for Karl Marlantes:

“Marlantes conveys the elements, arcana and dangerous romance of logging superbly. His descriptions of logging itself—the ingenious mechanics of taking down trees and the skill of experienced loggers—are wonderfully detailed, dramatic and exhilarating… Mighty physical, social and economic forces operate the plot of this novel, buffeting its characters, raising them up, flinging them down, twisting their fates together. Deep River is a big American novel.”—Wall Street Journal on Deep River

“Deep River is an engrossing and commanding historical epic about one immigrant family’s shifting fortunes… An unforgettable novel.”—Washington Post on Deep River

“Marlantes poignantly depicts the intimacies of personal dramas that echo the twentieth century’s unprecedented political storms and yet in surprising ways reprise Finland’s oldest mythologies… An unforgettable novel.”—Booklist (starred review) on Deep River

“Matterhorn is a raw, brilliant account of war that may well serve as a final exorcism for one of the most painful passages in American history. . . . It’s not a book so much as a deployment, and you will not return unaltered. . . . One of the most profound and devastating novels ever to come out of Vietnam—or any war.” —Sebastian Junger, The New York Times Book Review (front-page review) on Matterhorn

“A powerful first work that defines the tragic cost of the Vietnam War in human terms. Marlantes’ breakneck writing style is both passionate and haunting, thrusting the reader into alternating moments of chaos and courage reflecting the fragility of our Marines on the ground—and their leadership—in combat.” —W.E.B. Griffin on Matterhorn

“Karl Marlantes has written a staggeringly beautiful book on combat—what it feels like, what the consequences are and above all, what society must do to understand it. In my eyes he has become the preeminent literary voice on war of our generation. He is a natural storyteller and a deeply profound thinker who not only illuminates war for civilians, but also offers a kind of spiritual guidance to veterans themselves. As this generation of warriors comes home, they will be enormously helped by what Marlantes has written—I’m sure he will literally save lives.” —Sebastian Junger on What It Is Like to Go to War

“What It Is Like to Go to War is a well-crafted and forcefully argued work that contains fresh and important insights into what it’s like to be in a war and what it does to the human psyche.” —The Washington Post on What It Is Like to Go to War

From the Publisher

2023-11-17
In his new novel, Marlantes moves from the jungles of Vietnam to the spectral tundra of a very cold Cold War–era Finland.

It’s 1947. Arnie Koski, a U.S. Army colonel, has a delicate mission: As military attaché in Finland, a tributary state to Nazi Germany during the war but now a buffer against an increasingly inimical Soviet Union, he has to keep a bunch of constituencies happy, not least the Pentagon brass. Arnie’s wartime friend, a Soviet officer named Mikhail Bobrov, is now his counterpart in Helsinki, with a different agenda but the same need for tightrope-walking skills. Their wives, Louise and Natalya, who form a careful friendship of their own, share that need, too. Louise is sometimes overwhelmed but no-nonsense, for “Army wives [are] used to getting things done alone.” The soulful, cautious Natalya’s life is more complicated still, for she lives under the doubtful eye of Oleg Sokolov, a colonel in the secret police, who monitors every step the Bobrovs take. For all that, Arnie and Mikhail hatch a friendly-wager plot to race by skis across northern Finland in February, perhaps not the smartest but certainly a suitably macho scheme. Alas—and here Marlantes’ rather relaxed narrative picks up speed—Louise and Natalya take the contest up a notch, with Louise sketching out a press release: “Two war heroes, friends and allies, making money for a joint Soviet-American orphanage project.” When, thanks to subterfuge, it actually lands in the hands of the press and the contest is widely publicized, governments get involved—and, naturally, things get ugly. Marlantes is better than Tom Clancy when it comes to the human element, but he’s similarly fascinated by militaria (“a Shpagin could fire a thousand rounds a minute”) and historical detail. All in all, it’s not John le Carré or Alan Furst, but it serves.

A few longueurs aside, there’s enough cat and mouse here to keep Cold War thriller buffs engaged.

Kirkus Reviews

Marlantes poignantly depicts the intimacies of personal dramas that echo the twentieth century’s unprecedented political storms and yet in surprising ways reprise Finland’s oldest mythologies…An unforgettable novel.”

Booklist (starred review) on Deep River

One of the most profound and devastating novels ever to come out of Vietnam—or any war.”

Sebastian Junger

Bronson Pinchot embraces the tone and accents of the international characters in this political thriller. In 1947, military attachés gather at a party. An American and a Russian diplomat agree to a friendly ski race across the Finnish countryside. The audiobook focuses on the adventure of the race, but real intrigue builds around the international diplomacy that mounts once word gets out about it. Pinchot's subtle performance captures the action of the competition. He also provides a quiet but tense soundscape for the backroom dialogue, which has the wives doing most of the talking as they work to avoid a dangerous propaganda disaster. Pinchot skillfully navigates the accents and characters, providing a satisfying performance. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

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