The Second Winter

by Craig Larsen Narrated by Mark Bramhall

Overview

"A great historical novel, a touching family saga, and a noir wartime thriller all rolled into one terrific narrative." --Lee Child, NYT best-selling author.


WINNER - National Indie Excellence Award 2017 for Literary Fiction


BRONZE WINNER - Foreword Indies 2016, War & Military


HONORABLE MENTION - San Francisco Book Festival 2017, General Fiction


The fog of war shrouds occupied Denmark in the darkest days of World War II. On a farm in Jutland, Fredrik Gregersen struggles to keep his children fed, supplementing his income by smuggling refugees through Denmark into Sweden. Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, Polina, a young Polish Jew, has been forced into prostitution by the Nazis. When Fredrik steals an heirloom necklace from a helpless Jewish family, his fate becomes intertwined with Polina's, entrapping them both in a complex web that takes decades to unravel.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

A great historical novel, a touching family saga, and a noir wartime thriller all rolled into one terrific narrative.” —Lee Child, New York Times best-selling author

"[A] richly narrated story that brings the horrors of the Holocaust and the merciless depravities that accompany war into vivid focus. There is a remarkable cinematic quality to the novel, from the barrenness of Jutland to what remains of the glitter of Copenhagen. An absolute page-turner and a discussion-group leader’s dream.” —Booklist

“Larsen creates a darkly sensual world in which evil impulses often triumph, but not always.” —Kirkus Review

“Larsen’s (Mania) impressive second novel is filled with compelling though not always attractive characters. A solid choice for adventurous readers.” —Library Journal 

“The Second Winter captures not the lives of soldiers on the battlefield, but those of simple people living on the edges.” —Foreword Reviews 

"The Second Winter by Craig Larsen is a book impossible to put down even when you wish you could.” —New York Journal of Books  

“These disparate lives cross in unexpected ways, making the ending satisfying without sacrificing the complexity of characters Larsen has so carefully created. This novel is a fresh approach to the abuses of both the occupier and the occupied in a period of history that continues to surprise us with its dark,dirty secrets.” —Historical Novel Society

“[Larsen] excels at capturing tone and building tension; once you’re into the main plot it’s hard to put the book down. You can practically see the dirt from the sty on Frederik’s clothes, feel the cold driving nails into Oskar’s hands, feel the hot anguish Amalia suffers at the hands of the family’s wealthy landlady as well as in her own home. It’s a time that’s so emotionally charged, but this perspective is different from so many that we see.” — Woman Around Town

Kirkus Reviews

2016-06-30
Danish resistance fighters are often as brutal as the occupying Nazis in Larsen’s (Mania, 2009) luridly dark exploration into the ways that “war can make criminals of heroes…and heroes of criminals.”In 1939, half-Jewish teen Polina ends up in the clutches of German soldiers who brutally use her for sex. Two years later she has become a prostitute in Copenhagen, where she catches the eye of Lt. Hermann Schmidt, a photographer for Germany’s Ministry of Propaganda who dabbles on the black market. He has a wife and daughter (whose memory of her long-dead father frames the novel), but he obsessively tracks down Polina, buys her from her pimp, and sets her up in the relative luxury of his apartment. Meanwhile, Fredrik Gregersen, the black sheep of “a venerable Danish family," scrapes by as a farmhand in rural Jutland. An amphetamine user and brutal father to his teenage children, Oskar and Amalia, Fredrik occasionally helps a neighbor smuggle escaping Jews to the coast for extra cash. When a transport goes wrong, Fredrik ends up with a Jewish family’s money and jewels. Then a few people close to Fredrik turn up dead and the police begin nosing around, so he sends Oskar to Copenhagen to sell the jewels. Unaware he is being tracked by a Resistance assassin out to retrieve the jewels, Oskar encounters Hermann and Polina and strikes a business deal; the irony is that Hermann buys most of the jewels with money he made selling paintings he had purchased from the strapped Gregersens. A smitten Oskar returns later to slip Polina away from Hermann's apartment, leaving behind an emerald necklace "to buy her freedom." Back in Jutland, Polina becomes a point of contention between Fredrik and Oskar. Her feelings toward Oskar, who loves her, are ambiguous; Fredrik, who sees in her his own animal instincts, both repulses and attracts her. It is not a situation likely to end well despite occasional slivers of tenderness. Larsen creates a darkly sensual world in which evil impulses often triumph, but not always.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169570137
Publisher:	Author's Republic
Publication date:	05/09/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos