The Katyn Order

March 14, 2011
Jacobson follows his debut, Night of Flames, with another solid WWII thriller. In late 1944, American Adam Nowak, a deadly sniper/assassin known as Wolf, is fighting alongside the remnants of the Polish army, the Armia Krajowa, as they seek to defeat the retreating Nazi army. Nowak must find a document, the Katyn order, which will prove that Russians at the highest level ordered the massacre of 20,000 Polish officers in 1940, primarily in the Katyn Forest. This document will be used to prevent the Soviets from taking over Poland when the three Allied leaders, Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt, meet in Potsdam to divide up postwar Europe. The author makes the bloody fight for Warsaw both exciting and suspenseful. While the search for the document drives the action, it's the saga of the brave men and women of the Armia Krajowa who must first battle the Germans and then the Russians that's the heart of the story.

March 1, 2011

Jacobson's second World War II novel (after the award-winning Night of Flames) offers two impressive historical thrillers in one. The first half, set during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, vividly portrays the near total destruction of Poland's capital as the resistance fighters try vainly and at great cost to resist the German advance. Adam Nowak, an American of Polish birth, works as an assassin for the resistance movement in uneasy alliance with one of their couriers, Natalia Kowalski. With the end of the European war, the novel's second half follows Adam and Natalia as the Red Army and the NKVD (a precursor to the Soviet KGB) tighten their control over Poland. In Krakow, Adam and Natalia are ordered by the British to find a copy of Stalin's authorization of the execution of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest, a war crime falsely attributed by the Soviets to the Germans. With the brutal NKVD agent who carried out the massacre on their heels, the two must again risk their lives in an attempt to alter the fate of their nation. VERDICT Despite a few coincidences that strain credulity, this novel's compelling authenticity and evocatively rendered detail will captivate history buffs and thriller fans alike.--Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2011
The Warsaw Rising was one of the sadly ironic chapters in WWII. Near the end of the war, Polish Resistance fighters, knowing the Russians would soon be routing the Germans from the cityand realizing that what was coming wasnt liberation but a simple exchange of tyrantsstaged one last armed uprising against the Nazis. It was successful but only briefly; waiting quietly outside the city, the Russians let the reinforced Germans squash the resistors before they crossed the Vistula River and squashed the Germans and what was left of Warsaw. In Jacobsons galvanizing mix of war novel and espionage thriller, we meet two of the Resistance fightersAdam, an American sharpshooter who has been dropped into Poland by British intelligence as an assassin, and Natalia, a train conductor and courier for the Resistance leaders. The two meet in the closing days of the Rising but come together later, both on the run from the Russians, to search for the Katyn Order, a document authorizing the murder of more than 20,000 Polish soldiers and civilians by the Red Army in 1940. In the right hands, the document could change the fate of Poland. Jacobson tells a riveting tale, drawing the drama out of the shocking historical backstory and effectively combining it with a moving love story and a detail-rich re-creation of the Resistance fighters world. Dont miss this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)