Cold Victory Audiobook By Karl Marlantes cover art

Cold Victory

A Novel

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free

$8.99/mo. after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Get this deal
Offer ends on July 15, 2026 at 11:59 PT.
More purchase options

Cold Victory

By: Karl Marlantes
Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
Get this deal

$8.99/mo. after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offer ends July 15, 2026 at 11:59pm PT.

Buy for $20.28

Buy for $20.28

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 Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Political Marriage Russia Soviet Union Military
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
Compelling Story • Creative Premise • Superb Narration • Good Pacing • Well-developed Plot

Highly rated for:

All stars
Most relevant
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.

How naive can you be?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautifully written , compelling story, as in with deep river, captures well, the essence of finishes.

Great author

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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.

That woman!!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

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.

Depressing Book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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.

Master of bittersweet story telling

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews