THE WINTER SOLDIER

Laurence Dobiesz's steady, unaffected narration brings precision, dexterity, and conviction to a story built on meticulous detailing. As narrator, he is clearly at home in several European languages and is capable of suggesting a character or a state of mind with a shift in volume or tone. Set in the Carpathians, in a makeshift hospital on the Austro-Russian front in WWI, Mason's epic romance is impressively informed on the geopolitics and the medical and military practices of the time. Here, a steady--and steadying--voice is welcome. The surgeries are grim, and one's heart breaks at the treatment of shell-shocked soldiers. You might ask: Haven't Hemingway and Pasternak and Barker already filled this particular shelf of fiction? Even so, the writing is superb, and Dobiesz's subtle and simpatico reading holds you hour by hour, and in suspense until its final minutes. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2018]