- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: Hyperion; 1 edition (May 15 2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 140130222X
- ISBN-13: 978-1401302221
- Product Dimensions: 24 x 15.8 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 544 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #953,454 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Using WWII's Battle of the Bulge as background, Frost (The List of Seven) spins real-life and fictional characters into thriller gold. Hitler assigns his most feared commando, Lt. Col. Otto Skorzeny, to lead a 2,000-man brigade disguised as American troops in Operation Autumn Mist, a last-ditch effort to defeat the western Allies in late 1944 by breaking through the lightly defended Belgium-Luxembourg region. Within this German unit is a special group of 20 commandos who will face almost certain death trying to achieve a secret "second objective." Opposing this force is a U.S. army made up of tired veterans, green troops and one tough MP with the criminal investigation division, Earl Grannit, a New York cop in civilian life. Leading the special contingent of Nazis commandos is SS lieutenant Erich Von Leinsdorf, a supremely intelligent and contemptuously cruel Nazi who will stop at nothing to achieve his objective. Comparisons with Day of the Jackal are inevitable and not amiss. $250,000 marketing; author tour. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* The idea of Nazi spies behind the lines during World War II remains a potent plot device, especially if, as in Ken Follett's classic Eye of the Needle (1978), the Germans are at least partially sympathetic figures. Frost, who wrote several successful thrillers before turning to golf history (The Greatest Game Ever Played, 2002), draws on the Follett model but introduces several wrinkles of his own. The plot is based on recently declassified documents relating to Operation Greif, a Nazi scheme to send English-speaking Germans, dressed as American GIs, behind the lines in the days prior to the Battle of the Bulge. The plan was to disrupt the Allied response to the German counterattack, but there was a "second objective": send a smaller group of commandos to France to assassinate Eisenhower. Frost builds on the facts by fleshing out the story of two of the would-be assassins: Bernie Oster, an American-born German whose parents returned to the fatherland in 1938, and Erich Von Reinsdorf, a diplomat's son who went on to become an SS officer at Dachau. Bernie wants no part of fighting Americans, but Von Reinsdorf is the real deal: a stone-cold killer trying to live down the fact that his father was part Jewish. Is Bernie, a mere auto mechanic, soldier enough to save Ike? Frost builds the characters beautifully, including a parallel story involving two American MPs, and, like Follett, he somehow manages to generate incredible suspense in the face of historical fact. This is a top-notch blend of espionage tradecraft and pulse-pounding action adventure. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.6 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mark Frost can still write fiction - great read - really!!!!, May 12 2007
By ellen "ellen in atlanta" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Second Objective (Hardcover)
Frost had written one of my favorite books (The List of Seven) - when he came back to fiction, I was elated. The Second Objective deals with events at WWII around the Battle of the Bulge, and the last ditch effort of the Germans to sabotage the Allies and gain the upper hand by infiltrating German soldiers disguised as American GI's. This German effort apparently was based on fact. It did not work, but is scary because it really could have been pulled off, with devastating results. The Germans had a second objective, zeroing in on an American that could have really made a dent in the war, and our history.I found it was a great read and told a story that kept you guessing, and you cared about the characters, and what happened to them.
Frost hasn't lost his touch. His writing remains exact, clear and spins a great and satisfying story.
Think you will like his style too.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
starts off great, falls into formula. Over all an enjoyable time spinner, Nov 4 2007
By clifford "akitonmyers" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Second Objective (Hardcover)
The first half of this book was five star WWII material all the way. Frost has a knack for writing easy-breezy prose and in building up sympathetic characters. The story starts off just prior to the outbreak of the battle of the bulge where Hitler makes a winter-time counter offensive. We follow Bernie, a kid from Brooklyn who's parents moved back to Germany during the Great Depression. Now Bernie is in the German army and because he can speak English fluently, he is drafted into a top-secret mission.The story follows Bernie's training and how he becomes partnered with Erich Von Reinsdorf, the son of a former diplomat and a psycho killer. The odd thing is that Erich starts off as a decent character, gets squished into a very two-dimensional parody of a serial killer and then is weakly fleshed out again towards the end, but by then it is too late to make us care about him again. Frost adds a third character, an American MP chasing the two across Europe.
I just want to put out there that the crescendo of this book for myself, and where I found a definitive high water mark, was just about half way through. Bernie sneaks back to an early rendezvous point and an altercation occurs in the basement there. If Frost had had the balls to either end it here or continue on with a series of disjointed observations, his writing could have stood up as classic. Instead from this point onwards, it is pretty much Frost wrapping up all the loose ends.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Read but Could Have Been Better, Nov 28 2007
By bronx book nerd - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Second Objective (Hardcover)
This book has an excellent plot summarized above by other reviewers so I won't go into detail here. There is one character who is too much of a stereotype of a new York City detective and his lines can be irritating because of this. Also, the main bad guy's systematic killing of virtually everyone he runs into is almost comical. If someone once said "I never met a man I didn't like", this guy could have said "I never met a person I didn't kill" Also, although I know there is a lot of action going on, it's hard to follow how Mr. Bad Guy comes up with every tool he needs at the exact moment: wire cutters, syringes, attache cases. For a guy who's on the run and traveling lightly, he seems to have an amzing ability to accomplish this. Perhaps Mary Poppins was a Nazi sympathizer.It still an interesting read, and it does motivate me to investigate further the Battle of the Bulge and other historical events included in the novel. However, I suspect there are more solid WWII suspense tales out there.
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