The End of War: A Novel of the Race for Berlin [Hardcover]

David L. Robbins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2000

Berlin, January  1945
The war draws to a close, but the fight for a vanquished city--and for history--is just beginning.

On the heels of the critically  acclaimed War of the Rats , the new master of historical suspense, David L. Robbins, turns his compelling vision on the waning months of World War II, when world leaders  engage in a dicey  game of cat  and mouse  to ultimately determine the fate of the second half of the twentieth century.

The End of War
In the final months of the war in Europe, the last act of a five-year conflagration is  about to be played out.  Allied generals  move their war-hardened  armies  around the mortally wounded Nazi military machine.  But strategies  are being  formed on a greater scale  than even generals  can  imagine. While Churchill  fumes helplessly, Roosevelt  makes  crucial decisions  that will cede  Berlin to Stalin and the Russians.

The stakes are no less critical for ordinary men and women, fighting to live another  day. On the ground  are young  Russian soldiers driven by vengeance  into the teeth of the still-deadly Nazi army;  American  forces push forward under  the  political  motives of a canny commander- in- chief; and the British, aloof, at odds with their Yankee  counterparts, see in these last fateful moves  a devastating  betrayal by Washington and Moscow.

The End of War vividly animates the giants who shaped history and breathes life into the heartbreaking struggles of those who merely lived it. From the chaos of the trenches  on the eastern front, to the desperation   of a single  Jewish man  hidden in a Berlin basement by a terrified mother and daughter,  to the burning  ambition of an American photojournalist  determined  to  capture  on film the defining moment  of the war, Robbins ushers us into the sweep of history  and  the  drama  of the  human  face of war.

An epic  novel exploding  with the urgency  of battle  and  history in the  making,  here  is The End of War.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Henry James called the novel a "loose, baggy monster," and the challenges of the genre are evident in David L. Robbins's The End of War. Robbins won acclaim in 1999 for War of the Rats, a knockdown-dragout retelling of the bloody Russian defense of Stalingrad against Nazi assault. Here, in The End of War, he weaves together six points of view as the final months of World War II march inexorably toward a familiar conclusion. The great strength of Robbins's novel is also its chief fault: the plot simply can't sustain the splintering effect of so many points of view. Ultimately, the star of this novel is war itself, not the novel's three representative civilians or its "Olympian gods," Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill. Particularly in the last chapters, World War II images flicker before our eyes like fragments of vintage newsreels. Robbins draws explicitly from those eerie images when Life magazine photojournalist Charley Bandy visits a death camp heaped with barely alive bodies.

Robbins demonstrates a mastery of his subject that should enthrall World War II buffs, and splendid moments are scattered liberally throughout the book, as when German cellist Lottie escapes a burning death by crawling through a narrow tunnel into the next bomb shelter, only to discover she's left behind her cherished, circa-1750 cello. Another is certainly when Roosevelt dreams of sledding in the moment before he is wheeled before Congress in his first public appearance in his wheelchair. Though the Churchill chapters routinely downplay that statesman's wit and shrewdness, gratifying moments of intense character study abound in Robbins's book.

By the time the Allied forces finally converge in Berlin, Robbins has given us enough information to appreciate both the extraordinary diplomatic maneuvers and their effects on ordinary citizens' lives. Robbins deliberately constructed The End of War along the lines of a Greek tragedy: "the gods discuss the affairs of man, then their Olympian intents are played out at human level." As a rule, the ordinary folks are more compelling and believable than the real historical figures. Perhaps this is because those figures are over-determined in the public imagination, whereas Lottie, the Russian soldier Ilya, and the American photographer Charley are rooted and credible--the sources of suspense in the novel.

Although the plot of The End of War converges neatly in Berlin, that unity of time and place does not tighten the loose macramé that knits Robbins's story together. Lottie and Ilya change in surprising ways during the ravages of war, however, and that character development gives the novel an epic feel. Fans of World War II will enjoy Robbins's fully realized world; fans of less specialized thrillers might enjoy the warmth and acuity of the assorted players. --Kathi Inman Berens

From Publishers Weekly

Sweeping in scope, this gripping, admirably researched historical novel resumes the account of WWII Robbins left off in War of the Rats. Picking up the narrative just before the stroke of midnight of New Year's Eve 1944, the saga moves skillfully back and forth between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill's cat-and-mouse games for postwar world control and the day-to-day hardships and terrors of ordinary figures caught up in the mortal conflict. Charley Bandy, a Tennessee tobacco farmer turned Life photographer, voluntarily returns to combat to be present for the German surrender. A pair of battle-hardened Russian soldiers, Misha Bakov and Ilya Shokhin, slog through the mud of Poland, pushing to take Berlin. And 26-year-old cellist Lottie (Charlota)Ano last name givenAthe only female member of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, lives in daily terror. Her mother is hiding a Jewish man in the cellar, and the Allied bombers are relentlessly pounding Berlin to rubble in an all-out effort to bring Hitler's Nazis to unconditional surrender. Eisenhower makes a cameo appearance, as do advisers to the Olympian triumvirate, architects of the history of the last half of the 20th century. Overwritten in places, the narrative frequently bogs down in trivia, and Robbins possesses a distracting proclivity for the random obscure (often ill-chosen) word. However, despite use of the third-person present tense, which essentially imposes the author as narrator/reporter and distances the reader from the full intensity of human experience, war buffs should find this an entertaining perspective on the end days of WWII. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (August 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553108301
• ISBN-13: 978-0553108309
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,667,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David L. Robbins was born in Richmond, Virginia, on March 10, 1954. He grew up in Sandston, a small town east of Richmond out by the airport. His father was among the first to sit behind the new radar screens in the air traffic control tower. Both his parents, Sam and Carol, were veterans of WWII. Sam saw action in the Pacific, especially at Pearl Harbor.

In 1976, David graduated from the College of William & Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia, with a B.A. in Theater and Speech. He didn't know what to do for a living, having little real theatrical talents, so he decided to attend what he calls the "great catch-basin of unfocused over-achievers": law school. He received his Juris Doctorate at William and Mary in 1980. Robbins practiced environmental law in Columbia, S.C. for a year to the day (his father demanded back the money for law school if David practiced less than one year - he quit two weeks before the anniversary but got Sam to agree that two weeks of accumulated vacation could be included) before turning his energy to a career as a freelance writer in 1981. He began writing fiction in 1990.

Robbins has published nine novels: Souls To Keep, a cosmic love story (published by HarperCollins in 1998); War Of The Rats, set during the battle of Stalingrad (published by Bantam in 1999; the basis for the movie Enemy At The Gates); The End of War, about the fall of Berlin at the end of WWII (Bantam in 2000); Scorched Earth, placed in the American South, about a church burning and contemporary racism (Bantam, 2002); Last Citadel, set during the great tank battle of Kursk on the Eastern Front of WWII (Bantam, 2003), Liberation Road, a tale of the battle for France in WWII told through the perspectives of two minorities in the U.S. Army, a black truck driver and a rabbi chaplain (Bantam, 2005) The Assassins Gallery, (Bantam, 2006,) an alternate history political thriller supposing the assassination of FDR in 1945, and The Betrayal Game, a sequel to The Assassins Gallery revolving around the events of the Bay Of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 and the CIA's many attempts to kill Fidel Castro. His latest novel, Broken Jewel (Simon & Schuster, 2009) is set in the Philippines in early 1945, at the Los Baños internment camp. The novel involves the rescue of 2100 Americans before their execution by the Japanese, and the story of a Filipina "comfort woman." Broken Jewel was described by Kirkus (starred review) as "...a remarkable story, brilliantly told."

The audio version of War Of The Rats was nominated for an Audie, as one of the top three unabridged novels of 2000. Likewise, the audio of Last Citadel was named one of Library Journal's top 3 recordings of 2005. His books have appeared on the NY Times Bestseller list, and been published in sixteen languages. For his wartime novels, David has been referred to by Kirkus as "the Homer of World War II."

Robbins resides in Richmond, Virginia. He is an accomplished guitarist, playing blues for years, but now he studies Latin classical. At six feet six inches tall, he stays active with his sailboat, shooting sporting clays, weightlifting, and traveling to research his novels. He is a founding co-chair of the James River Writers, a non-profit organization in his hometown of Richmond that helps aspiring writers and students work and learn together as a writing community. He has taught at Virginia Commonwealth, and as writer-in-residence at his alma mater, the College of William and Mary. Currently, he is the chairman and co-founder of the non-profit Podium Foundation, an organization which has created a literary journal, arts website, and several literacy programs for Richmond Public High School students (PodiumFoundation.com). His website address is Davidlrobbins.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The End of War: A Novel of the Race for Berlin, August 8, 2000

By 

Alex McMurtrie (Midlothian, Va USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The End of War: A Novel of the Race for Berlin (Hardcover)

Once again, David L. Robins has produced a work that is not only riveting, but is packed with gems of historical fact that opened this readers eyes to the politics of World War II. This tale is more than the stories of heroic struggles of fighting men on various fronts, it reveals the behind the scenes intrigue between the world leaders of the time and how their personlities and private agendas have formed the world we live in today. With this knowledge comes the unfortunate revelation that we, as Americans, through our leadership of the time, allowed the dark and bloody hand of communism free reign. This however, I believe is not the intent of the author. Mr. Robins is careful to leave the reader with hope. This hope stems from knowldege, which is power. As we all have heard, "those who do not know history are bound to repeat it" This book is a "must read" for all, even if your not a "history buff." Putting the seriousness of the subject matter aside for a moment, this book is very entertaining and moving. Mr. Robins charactors are truely alive and three dimensional. As with all great writers, the reader becomes a part of the book. Transported to the time and place and becoming a charactor themselves, if you will. I found the ending to be, not only surprizing, but a masterful twist from the genius of the author, which was both compelling and very moving.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Gripping Novel, August 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The End of War: A Novel of the Race for Berlin (Hardcover)

The novel gets you hooked the moment you finish reading the first few pages. I have seen a lot of World War-II movies but none that talks about the end of war in this detail and presents so many different view-points. I think its an excellent read.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very well researched, eloquently written., August 20, 2000

By 

Joseph Hiller (Richmond, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The End of War: A Novel of the Race for Berlin (Hardcover)

This is the second book by Mr. Robbins that I've read. The End of War is an extremely well-researched, eloquently written, gripping story describing the lives of several different characters toward the end of WWII. The author does a splendid job of describing the brutality of the war (on both the Eastern and Western fronts) and its effect on disparate characters while both staying within the bounds of historical fact as well as keeping the reader highly engrossed. Fans of either Mr. Robbins previous novel, War of the Rats, or of the war genre in general will find this a fascinating read.