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Camp Stalag
 
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Camp Stalag [Deluxe Edition] [Hardcover]

Bill Walker (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Price: $40.00 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
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Book Description

November 1, 2001
When journalist and aspiring war novelist Frank Murphy returns from the 10th Annual World War Convention, he has no idea that the mysterious videotape he holds in his hands will change his life forever. He has been handpicked to participate in a specialized experiment in mass psychology and a unique form of Living History:

"Spend two weeks with three hundred other men in an authentic replica of a World War Two German POW Camp!" the tape says. "Come, and experience the thrill of a lifetime!"

For Frank it is the chance to research the book he has always wanted to write firsthand, a chance to relive a piece of history, a chance to feel closer to the heroic and beloved father he barely knew. Eager for adventure, Frank and his best friend, Dean Seger, leave their wives and families behind and plunge headlong into a time gone by.

Everything about Camp Stalag is authentic: The buildings, the uniforms, the food, the guards, the weapons--the savage treatment.

Soon Frank, Dean, and the others find their cherished fantasy turning into a nightmare. The Germans are playing for keeps, and no one may leave...ever.

Camp Stalag, the monstrous creation of billionaire defense contractor Heinrich Koenig and his adopted son, Johann Schmidt, is Koenig's last hurrah--his final revenge for the humiliations of Germany's defeat and the death of his mother at the hands of marauding soldiers. Dying of brain cancer, he has secreted a weapon of terrifying power within the camp to insure that no one will interfere.

Unaware of this danger, and desperate for freedom, Frank and his men try to escape the camp's brutality, personified by the greedy and sadistic Sergeant-of-the-Guard, Hans Mannheim.

And everything's about to get worse....

Koenig's mental deterioration has left him believing the camp is real and the war still rages. He orders the compound expanded, tortures the prisoners for outdated military secrets, listens to the Fuhrer's speeches by the hour, and begins having nightmares from his past, nightmares that leave him dangerously disoriented.

Now the prisoners' only hope lies with John Riley.

An ex-cop and private eye hired by Frank's wife, Brenda, Riley must find the camp, get inside, and help them shoot their way out before Koenig tires of the game....

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This far-fetched adventure thriller, partly adapted from a film script, as Walker admits in his afterword, reads like a nightmarish, unfunny episode of Hogan's Heroes. Journalist Frank Murphy and his best friend, Bill Seger, are thrilled to be among 300 men chosen to spend two weeks in a simulated WWII German POW camp in New Hampshire, some of them apparently because their fathers were POWs. After being drugged and transported to Wisconsin, they realize that they have been kidnapped by a group of Germans led by aged multimillionaire Heinrich Koenig, a madman who lives in the past and has stolen a small nuclear device that he threatens to detonate. Suspense mainly revolves around Frank and Bill's efforts to foil Kommandant Koenig. There are attempted escapes, brutal murders, a little sex and several plot threads that the author carelessly leaves dangling. The protagonists show only strong or violent emotions, which they switch on and off like cartoon characters. Readers who can overlook inconsistencies and suspend disbelief (the prisoners discover they are in the Central time zone when the sun sets an hour earlier than it did in the Eastern time zone they thought they were in) may find this tale an exciting and fast-paced modern equivalent of an old Saturday afternoon Grade-B serial movie.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


Product Details

  • Hardcover: 420 pages
  • Publisher: Cemetery Dance Publications; 1st edition (November 1, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 158767033X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1587670336
  • Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,409,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

 

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Really disappointing, October 5, 2005
By 
This review is from: Camp Stalag (Hardcover)
For something this fanciful to work, every element, from the characters to the plot to the setting, has to contribute to the suspension of disbelief. None of this took place. The characters were cardboard, the plot meandered, the background was hazy. I will still try to slog through it just because I always try to finish books, but this one's going to take me a while. Sorry, didn't work for me.

A note on how I read, and how I review:

When they begin to bore me, or I stop believing in the world the writer is attempting to create, I stop reading and move on to something else. There are so many books, and so little time, that it's simply not worth spending time on books that aren't getting the job done. If the book isn't holding your interest, why bother?
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Plot, Gripping Suspense, October 13, 2005
This review is from: Camp Stalag (Hardcover)
I'm not sure where the previous reviewer is coming from, but I feel his/her comments are really misplaced, especially since he/she admits to not even having finished the book. Well, I just did and it really held me. I stayed up far too late to finish this and while I'm having to drink more coffee today to wake me up, I have no regrets. The characters are memorable, as is the story. Could it really happen, maybe not, but isn't that what we read fiction for? To escape to worlds that can't really exist? I was able to suspend my disbelief with no problems, finding the premise of a re-created German POW camp extremely fascinating. And for those of you who ask, "Why would anyone want to get dressed up in an old uniform and play war?", just ask that question of all those Civil War reenactors. They take it very seriously. Anyway, is this Hemingway? No, but that's not why I bought it. I wanted a unique and entertaining read and I got one. The writing is tight and keeps one turning the pages. Thumb's up!
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0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars strange entertaining thriller, January 20, 2006
This review is from: Camp Stalag (Hardcover)
In New Hampshire three hundred men are invited to spend two weeks in a replica of a WWII German POW camp; most of the chosen are the sons of soldiers who spent part of WW II in a Germen prison. Among the three-hundred, reporter Frank Murphy and his best friend Bill Seger are euphoric that they were selected.
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However, the American guests are "abducted" and taken to the camp under the guise of realism. They soon learn that this is not Hogan's Heroes or even Stalag 17 and that this cannot be New Hampshire. Kommandant Heinrich Koenig makes Camp Stalag the real thing as he brutally treats the chosen with scorn and abuse. Soon murders occur while prisoners try to escape from the hell Koenig has made of his "dream" to have one last victory before he dies. Murphy and Seger agree if they do nothing else they will take down Koenig.
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CAMP STALAG is a strange entertaining tale that uses reenactment to tell a twenty-first century WW II thriller. Frank and the Kommandant are interesting characters, both weird in their own way. Frank is hung up over his dad's war years as he glamorizes them while feeling strongly his lack of such experience lessens him as a man. Heinrich seems like a lunatic trying to revise history in a modern context. Thus these two antagonists in their crazy way keep Bill Walker's thriller from turning into a bad Hogan's Heroes' one joke plot, but instead make for a deep character study of two opponents reliving the past in the present.
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Harriet Klausner
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