The Second Objective [Mass Market Paperback]

Mark Frost (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 2009

<STRONG>Bestselling author Mark Frost makes a triumphant return to fiction with this riveting World War II thriller, based on a shocking real-life German operation run by "the most dangerous man in Europe"</STRONG> <P>Fall 1944. Germany is losing, and the Americans are starting to hope they?ll be home for Christmas. Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny, "Hitler's Commando," famed for his daring rescue of the imprisoned Mussolini, has just received orders for Operation <EM>Greif</EM>: He is to assemble a new brigade of 2,000 men, all of whom speak English, and send them behind Allied lines disguised as GIs, where they will wreak havoc in advance of a savage new offensive. And from those men, Skorzeny is to select a smaller group, made up of the twenty most highly skilled commandos fluent in American culture, to attempt an even more sinister mission -- the second objective -- which, if completed, not only would change the course of the war, but would change the course of history. <P>Filled with real characters and details only recently released by the United States military, <EM>The Second Objective</EM> is historical fiction at its most pulse-pounding, its most unpredictable, and its most compulsively readable. </P>

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Using WWII's Battle of the Bulge as background, Frost (The List of Seven) spins real-life and fictional characters into thriller gold. Hitler assigns his most feared commando, Lt. Col. Otto Skorzeny, to lead a 2,000-man brigade disguised as American troops in Operation Autumn Mist, a last-ditch effort to defeat the western Allies in late 1944 by breaking through the lightly defended Belgium-Luxembourg region. Within this German unit is a special group of 20 commandos who will face almost certain death trying to achieve a secret "second objective." Opposing this force is a U.S. army made up of tired veterans, green troops and one tough MP with the criminal investigation division, Earl Grannit, a New York cop in civilian life. Leading the special contingent of Nazis commandos is SS lieutenant Erich Von Leinsdorf, a supremely intelligent and contemptuously cruel Nazi who will stop at nothing to achieve his objective. Comparisons with Day of the Jackal are inevitable and not amiss. $250,000 marketing; author tour. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The idea of Nazi spies behind the lines during World War II remains a potent plot device, especially if, as in Ken Follett's classic Eye of the Needle (1978), the Germans are at least partially sympathetic figures. Frost, who wrote several successful thrillers before turning to golf history (The Greatest Game Ever Played, 2002), draws on the Follett model but introduces several wrinkles of his own. The plot is based on recently declassified documents relating to Operation Greif, a Nazi scheme to send English-speaking Germans, dressed as American GIs, behind the lines in the days prior to the Battle of the Bulge. The plan was to disrupt the Allied response to the German counterattack, but there was a "second objective": send a smaller group of commandos to France to assassinate Eisenhower. Frost builds on the facts by fleshing out the story of two of the would-be assassins: Bernie Oster, an American-born German whose parents returned to the fatherland in 1938, and Erich Von Reinsdorf, a diplomat's son who went on to become an SS officer at Dachau. Bernie wants no part of fighting Americans, but Von Reinsdorf is the real deal: a stone-cold killer trying to live down the fact that his father was part Jewish. Is Bernie, a mere auto mechanic, soldier enough to save Ike? Frost builds the characters beautifully, including a parallel story involving two American MPs, and, like Follett, he somehow manages to generate incredible suspense in the face of historical fact. This is a top-notch blend of espionage tradecraft and pulse-pounding action adventure. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; Reprint edition (April 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078689122X
• ISBN-13: 978-0786891221
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #581,423 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MARK FROST is the bestselling author of The Greatest Game Ever Played, The Grand Slam, and the novels The Second Objective, The List of Seven, and The Six Messiahs. He received a Writers Guild Award and an Emmy nomination for the acclaimed television series Hill Street Blues, was co-creator and executive producer of the legendary ABC television series Twin Peaks, and in 2005 wrote and produced The Greatest Game Ever Played as a major motion picture from Walt Disney Studios. Mark lives in Los Angeles and upstate New York with his wife and son.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mark Frost can still write fiction - great read - really!!!!, May 12, 2007

By 

ellen "ellen in atlanta" (Atlanta, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: The Second Objective (Hardcover)

Frost had written one of my favorite books (The List of Seven) - when he came back to fiction, I was elated. The Second Objective deals with events at WWII around the Battle of the Bulge, and the last ditch effort of the Germans to sabotage the Allies and gain the upper hand by infiltrating German soldiers disguised as American GI's. This German effort apparently was based on fact. It did not work, but is scary because it really could have been pulled off, with devastating results. The Germans had a second objective, zeroing in on an American that could have really made a dent in the war, and our history.
I found it was a great read and told a story that kept you guessing, and you cared about the characters, and what happened to them.
Frost hasn't lost his touch. His writing remains exact, clear and spins a great and satisfying story.
Think you will like his style too.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars starts off great, falls into formula. Over all an enjoyable time spinner, November 4, 2007

By 

clifford "akitonmyers" (Portland, OR, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Second Objective (Hardcover)

The first half of this book was five star WWII material all the way. Frost has a knack for writing easy-breezy prose and in building up sympathetic characters. The story starts off just prior to the outbreak of the battle of the bulge where Hitler makes a winter-time counter offensive. We follow Bernie, a kid from Brooklyn who's parents moved back to Germany during the Great Depression. Now Bernie is in the German army and because he can speak English fluently, he is drafted into a top-secret mission.

The story follows Bernie's training and how he becomes partnered with Erich Von Reinsdorf, the son of a former diplomat and a psycho killer. The odd thing is that Erich starts off as a decent character, gets squished into a very two-dimensional parody of a serial killer and then is weakly fleshed out again towards the end, but by then it is too late to make us care about him again. Frost adds a third character, an American MP chasing the two across Europe.

I just want to put out there that the crescendo of this book for myself, and where I found a definitive high water mark, was just about half way through. Bernie sneaks back to an early rendezvous point and an altercation occurs in the basement there. If Frost had had the balls to either end it here or continue on with a series of disjointed observations, his writing could have stood up as classic. Instead from this point onwards, it is pretty much Frost wrapping up all the loose ends.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Read but Could Have Been Better, November 28, 2007

By 

bronx book nerd (Bronx, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Second Objective (Hardcover)

This book has an excellent plot summarized above by other reviewers so I won't go into detail here. There is one character who is too much of a stereotype of a new York City detective and his lines can be irritating because of this. Also, the main bad guy's systematic killing of virtually everyone he runs into is almost comical. If someone once said "I never met a man I didn't like", this guy could have said "I never met a person I didn't kill" Also, although I know there is a lot of action going on, it's hard to follow how Mr. Bad Guy comes up with every tool he needs at the exact moment: wire cutters, syringes, attache cases. For a guy who's on the run and traveling lightly, he seems to have an amzing ability to accomplish this. Perhaps Mary Poppins was a Nazi sympathizer.

It still an interesting read, and it does motivate me to investigate further the Battle of the Bulge and other historical events included in the novel. However, I suspect there are more solid WWII suspense tales out there.