War of the Rats

By: David L. Robbins

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

The battle at Stalingrad during World War II has been called the bloodiest campaign in the history of war. Success was measured in meters, and corpses piled high amid the charred wreckage of the Russian city. In this grisly setting, David L. Robbins stages an unforgettable contest. On the Russian side is Zaitsev, the Hare, who has been trained since childhood in hunting and tracking. As a sniper, he kills a German with each bullet. Berlin has sent its best marksman, the Headmaster, to find and kill the Hare. The Headmaster's accuracy is phenomenal, and his cunning is legendary. In the ensuing battle of skill and wit between the two deadly soldiers, lives hang on a second's hesitation or haste. Historically accurate, filled with the tension of life-and-death decisions, War of the Rats is a best seller destined to become a classic war novel. Narrator George Guidall aptly provides voices for the full cast of this epic battle.

©1999 David L. Robbins (P)2020 Recorded Books

Read this as a kid and loved it

I read this when I was much younger and absolutely loved it. It does take some liberties with historical facts if I remember correctly but I was glued to the book. I've been meaning to go through it again.

a first love

my first and still favorite audio book of a town. george Guiddall is a genius

Verbose as Slow Death

18.5 hours - are you kidding me! If this was just 6 hours it'd be great, then maybe I'd give it 4-5 stars instead of 1 star. But the author continuously goes insane with 1-3 minutes of endless annoying nonsensical loquacity, self talk and personal questions of no relative value. If you enjoy quality writing, then you will be forced to fast forward 30 seconds like every 2-3 minutes or else you will be rolling your eyes and saying to yourself: are you kidking me!.

It's as if the author thinks he is smarter than David Silva when it is quite the opposite. Silva can get away with it as the nonsensical self talk is related to the storyline, whereas in this book it is not. It is just wasted gibberish worthless text.

The climax of the book was anticlimactic and somewhat confusing and I had to listen to it 2 times and it was still unclear. It also involved a relatively blind shot in the dark, which goes against the grain of this entire book and the skills of a world renowned sniper who knows 1 shot = 1 kill. The climax involves 1 shot = I wonder.

There is some rare great writing IE "he rolled the empty Cognac glass in his hand, he felt his own warmth in it." or "Tanya slid back in (the room), she stood in the doorway wordless, uninvited but possessing the room as if it were her own chamber."

BEST PART OF THE BOOK
The end of the book has a 1 hour interview with author and the history of the book is extremely interesting and entertaining.

Unforgivable historical errors

I was into this book until it came to the section about the inclusion of women in the sniper unit. By the time of Stalingrad there were many highly decorated women sharpshooters in the red army, which is not so much as acknowledged when objections are raised to including women in the unit. Treating the inclusion of women in the unit as unique to Stalingrad and as primarily a PR stunt is a lazy ahistorical framing. made me put the book down.