Cold Victory

A Novel

By: Karl Marlantes

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot

Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

This is another masterful novel from the author of the modern classic Matterhorn, whose “breakneck writing style is both passionate and haunting” (W. E. B. Griffin). Layered with fast-paced action, historical detail, and a keen eye for the way totalitarianism and loss of truth and privacy threatens love and friendship, Cold Victory is a triumph.

©2024 Karl Marlantes (P)2024 Blackstone Publishing

Master of bittersweet story telling

Cold Victory is something like a pseudo sequel to Deep River and follows a member of the same Finnish family serving the US legation commission to Finland shortly after the end of the Second World War.

The author does a characteristically excellent job communicating the pervading despair and bitterness of the Finnish population as they attempt to meet the demands forced on them with the signing of the Moscow Accords which established and armistice between Finland and the Soviet Union.

The story largely focuses on the relationship that forms between a somewhat naïve Oklahoman housewife to a member of the US legation and a counterpart from the Soviet legation.

The story seeks, in some part, to communicate the juxtaposition between two wives coming from to very different nations, family backgrounds and childhoods, but who share a mutual love for their war weary husbands and desire to help the children of a local orphanage in Helsinki.

Ultimately the story attempts to serves as a warning of the dangers of blind naïveté and good intentions in an environment where bitterness and resentment are as cold and the native winter; as well, lamenting the replacement of honor and mutual respect among warriors with politicians, spies and paranoia.

Though the books ending feels somewhat rushed it’s honest to the authors narrative.

I recommend this book.

Thank you for another excellent book Mr. Marlantes.

Well done

Very good story. Kept my interest as I tried to put myself at the same time and locations. The man reading the story, for the most part, did very well with the pronunciation of Finnish words.

Worth the listen

An excellent contrast in beliefs on the individual level. The story is well developed and compelling though a bit painful.

A good lesson in the gift we have in a free society.

Karl draws us into the emotions of deep loss and disturbs our sense of safety.

How naive can you be?

Having read and enjoyed Matterhorn, I was looking forward to this novel. While there are some compelling characters and plot twists, I struggled with the naïveté of Arnie and Louise, especially the latter.

Great author

Beautifully written , compelling story, as in with deep river, captures well, the essence of finishes.

The character development

A great end of WWll thriller with believable characters and plot. Hard to put down

Very Disappointing

My review is only as negative as it is because Karl Marlantes is an excellent writer and creater of characters, as evidenced in Matterhorn. The characters in this book were stereotypes, and 2 dimensional. The dialogue was uninspired, and the narrator, while good, insisted on using accents even when they made no sense (in French, or Finnish, for example). Finally, the plot was both unrealistic and had no metaphoric or artistic meaning. Overall, if you like Karl Marlantes, and want to keep that impression unsullied, avoid this book.

That woman!!!

It is incredible that ANYONE, even in 1947, could be so disastrously, dangerously naive as Louise. The repercussions of her mistakes are the plot and it makes a good read. Narration was superb. I highly recommend the book. Well worth a credit.

Depressing Book

I haven’t read any of the author’s other books but they have good reviews.
The naivety of Louise was exasperating and I almost quit the book half way through. I wish I had as it was one of the most depressing books I have listened to or read in a long time.

If all you care about is pacing, go ahead. If you care about characters, don’t waste your time.

This book is filled with tropes - about women and about the Cold War. The main character is so absurdly naive that she is ridiculous. The entire premise hangs on the husbands’ failing to communicate that the thing they’re doing needs to remain a secret- an absolutely unbelievable omission given the nature of their work and the potential consequences. Louise, the main character, makes one STUPID mistake after another, always saying she didn’t know and she didn’t mean to. If this read like an allegory, MAYBE, as clearly Louise is a stand-in for naive, well-intended Americans who know nothing. But as a spy thriller it’s painfully thin. The premise is actually pretty creative and the pacing is good. But damn I’m tired of men creating stupid and thin women characters.