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Rust and Bone
Where does one seek refuge when all the world’s gone mad?
The last winter of the war comes as young Jakob Fritsch’s German village in Ukraine is torched by Russian troops. Separated from his mother and younger brother, he’s shoved onto a train’s stock car. Rumors float among them; they’re being taken to a work camp over the Urals, where they will be worked to death.
As morning dawns, a lone Stuka dives from the sky, dropping its bomb on the locomotive, and the stock cars are blown from the tracks, tipped, and smashed. Through splintered boards, Jakob and others scramble out, running for the surrounding woods as the Russian guards begin shooting them down.
Jakob escapes into the endless pines, running until he’s exhausted. Some time later, he chances upon other survivors from the his sick and aging schoolmaster who’s a Nazi supporter at heart and the disagreeable postmaster, a man Jakob can’t stand and doesn’t trust. Always on the lookout for deserters, partisans, and Russian soldiers, the three make their way across war-torn Ukraine, begging for food and shelter where they can.
A tragic turn of events forces Jakob to journey on alone. Ever watchful, he must chance crossing the desolate countryside of Poland en route to Berlin, the only place he can go — the land of his forefathers, the heart of Germany, which is being bombed to its knees and torn apart from all sides.
The last winter of the war comes as young Jakob Fritsch’s German village in Ukraine is torched by Russian troops. Separated from his mother and younger brother, he’s shoved onto a train’s stock car. Rumors float among them; they’re being taken to a work camp over the Urals, where they will be worked to death.
As morning dawns, a lone Stuka dives from the sky, dropping its bomb on the locomotive, and the stock cars are blown from the tracks, tipped, and smashed. Through splintered boards, Jakob and others scramble out, running for the surrounding woods as the Russian guards begin shooting them down.
Jakob escapes into the endless pines, running until he’s exhausted. Some time later, he chances upon other survivors from the his sick and aging schoolmaster who’s a Nazi supporter at heart and the disagreeable postmaster, a man Jakob can’t stand and doesn’t trust. Always on the lookout for deserters, partisans, and Russian soldiers, the three make their way across war-torn Ukraine, begging for food and shelter where they can.
A tragic turn of events forces Jakob to journey on alone. Ever watchful, he must chance crossing the desolate countryside of Poland en route to Berlin, the only place he can go — the land of his forefathers, the heart of Germany, which is being bombed to its knees and torn apart from all sides.
296 pages, Paperback
Published March 31, 2026
1 person is currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Dietrich Kalteis
25 books122 followersDietrich Kalteis is the critically acclaimed author of thirteen novels and winner of the 2022 Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence for Best Crime Novel for Under an Outlaw Moon. His first novel, Ride the Lightning, won the bronze medal for Best Regional Fiction in the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2015. House of Blazes was his fourth novel and won the silver medal for Best Historical Fiction in the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2017. His screenplay Between Jobs is a past finalist in the Los Angeles Screenplay Contest. He enjoys life with his family on Canada’s West Coast.
Visit his website: http://www.dietrichkalteis.com/
He regularly contributes at Off the Cuff: http://www.dietrichkalteis.blogspot.ca/
And at 7 Criminal Minds:
http://www.7criminalminds.blogspot.ca/
You can also find him on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dietrich.kalt...
and Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dietrichkalteis/
Visit his website: http://www.dietrichkalteis.com/
He regularly contributes at Off the Cuff: http://www.dietrichkalteis.blogspot.ca/
And at 7 Criminal Minds:
http://www.7criminalminds.blogspot.ca/
You can also find him on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dietrich.kalt...
and Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dietrichkalteis/
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 10, 2026
During the final months of WW II, the tide had turned. German settlers living in a remote village in the Ukraine were rounded up; men and boys were separated from women and children. They watched as their village was torched. “The Red Army was coming like a bad storm on the heels of the retreating Wehrmacht”. The settlers were just “people of the land…the land had died. Sixteen year old Jakob Fritsch was told of the “one-time green of it.”
The Russians drove packed trucks of Salistal villagers to the rail lines. A fuselage bomb was mistakenly dropped on the train once the prisoners were aboard. Perhaps the Stuka pilot thought it was a supply train. Through an opening of splintered wood, Jakob escaped running toward the tree line amid rifle fire. He had to leave his Mutti and younger brother Max behind in order to survive. Jakob would need to find a path west to avoid capture by the Russians. With two others who escaped the potential “death train” an uneasy alliance was formed. Schulmeister Schaefer had taught his students all of the new ideals. He was sorry there were “no youth groups in this wilderness of Ukraine.” He took it upon himself “to instruct (his classes) in the proper ways.” Stefan Holt, the village postmaster, relayed rumors of the German retreat. Exhibiting despicable manners, he constantly stirred the pot, especially targeting Jakob.
“Plenty of villages have seen the torch…First by Russians, then by Germans. And Polish ones to the west, the people rebuilding, then burned out again.” “Hunger knows no rules”, stale or moldy bread became a delicacy…a warm stove and a hard floor…appreciated.
Sixteen year old Frida Beckmann lived with her Opa, mother and two younger siblings in the hamlet of Juhnsdorf within distance of Berlin. Her father, conscripted by Russia, now sat in a POW prisoner camp in Utah. Thank goodness for father-daughter outings where Frida learned the wartime art of deflection. These lessons were especially helpful when Opa’s cigarette lighter was found by a German officer at the nearby airstrip. Her bestie, Liesel lived on the neighboring farm. Due to heavy, frequent bombing by the Allies, both families could often be found in their respective bunkers. After each all clear, the girls met, hugged and talked about the future. Boys who were their classmates since kindergarten were called up for military service. Many childhood friends died in battle. If Armin returned, Liesel would set her sights on him.
Along the way, Jakob, Schaefer and Holt joined a group of refugees. Jakob was able to save a young boy’s dog. He told the boy to name his dog. No one would want to eat “Bruno” for dinner. Rotten apples were discovered. In pursuit of an apple, a woman stepped on a land mine. The blame fell on Jakob and he was ostracized, forced from the refugee caravan.
At every juncture, travelers could be hunted by either Germans or Russians. The odds were not in their favor. Neither were the odds of Jakob locating Mutti and brother Max left behind during the railway explosion. Frida’s family, especially Opa, had stopped believing the “propaganda machine” since many German towns had been decimated by Allied bombing.
“Rust and Bone” by Dietrich Kalteis is a departure from his crime writing novels. This read is history through fiction as seen through the eyes of teenagers Jakob Fritsch and Frida Beckmann. Although it was an unsettling, difficult read, this reader rapidly kept turning pages to find out how the teens fared. In the final analysis, war games are strategized by leaders, while the cost of human life is pure devastation.
Highly recommended.
Thank you Dietrich Kalteis and Alex Dunn @ ECW Press for a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
The Russians drove packed trucks of Salistal villagers to the rail lines. A fuselage bomb was mistakenly dropped on the train once the prisoners were aboard. Perhaps the Stuka pilot thought it was a supply train. Through an opening of splintered wood, Jakob escaped running toward the tree line amid rifle fire. He had to leave his Mutti and younger brother Max behind in order to survive. Jakob would need to find a path west to avoid capture by the Russians. With two others who escaped the potential “death train” an uneasy alliance was formed. Schulmeister Schaefer had taught his students all of the new ideals. He was sorry there were “no youth groups in this wilderness of Ukraine.” He took it upon himself “to instruct (his classes) in the proper ways.” Stefan Holt, the village postmaster, relayed rumors of the German retreat. Exhibiting despicable manners, he constantly stirred the pot, especially targeting Jakob.
“Plenty of villages have seen the torch…First by Russians, then by Germans. And Polish ones to the west, the people rebuilding, then burned out again.” “Hunger knows no rules”, stale or moldy bread became a delicacy…a warm stove and a hard floor…appreciated.
Sixteen year old Frida Beckmann lived with her Opa, mother and two younger siblings in the hamlet of Juhnsdorf within distance of Berlin. Her father, conscripted by Russia, now sat in a POW prisoner camp in Utah. Thank goodness for father-daughter outings where Frida learned the wartime art of deflection. These lessons were especially helpful when Opa’s cigarette lighter was found by a German officer at the nearby airstrip. Her bestie, Liesel lived on the neighboring farm. Due to heavy, frequent bombing by the Allies, both families could often be found in their respective bunkers. After each all clear, the girls met, hugged and talked about the future. Boys who were their classmates since kindergarten were called up for military service. Many childhood friends died in battle. If Armin returned, Liesel would set her sights on him.
Along the way, Jakob, Schaefer and Holt joined a group of refugees. Jakob was able to save a young boy’s dog. He told the boy to name his dog. No one would want to eat “Bruno” for dinner. Rotten apples were discovered. In pursuit of an apple, a woman stepped on a land mine. The blame fell on Jakob and he was ostracized, forced from the refugee caravan.
At every juncture, travelers could be hunted by either Germans or Russians. The odds were not in their favor. Neither were the odds of Jakob locating Mutti and brother Max left behind during the railway explosion. Frida’s family, especially Opa, had stopped believing the “propaganda machine” since many German towns had been decimated by Allied bombing.
“Rust and Bone” by Dietrich Kalteis is a departure from his crime writing novels. This read is history through fiction as seen through the eyes of teenagers Jakob Fritsch and Frida Beckmann. Although it was an unsettling, difficult read, this reader rapidly kept turning pages to find out how the teens fared. In the final analysis, war games are strategized by leaders, while the cost of human life is pure devastation.
Highly recommended.
Thank you Dietrich Kalteis and Alex Dunn @ ECW Press for a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
April 20, 2026
Rust and Bone
Rust and Bone is a departure for those who know and love Dietrich Kalteis’s contemporary and historical thrillers.
This is set in the ugly blood-soaked dying days of the Second World War. It is a coming-of-age story of a cast of characters, most notably Jakob Fritsch, a boy whose journey to manhood marches through the worst of humanity. And Frida Beckmann, another resourceful teen who also endures loss, fear and uncertainty while hoping for love and family, if any boys are left alive.
Kalteis tells their separate journeys in tandem.
Jakob is born into a German family whose farm in Ukraine is overrun by vengeful Russian soldiers. Their village of Salistal is destroyed and its citizens are loaded on a freight train, bound for work camps or death. The train is bombed off the rails by the Luftwaffe. Russians on one side, Germans on the other, the people of Salistal are caught between two warring powers with no allies and little hope.
Jakob flees from the derailed train but is separated from his family.
He joins a rag-tag group hiding from enemies on both sides. He endured near starvation, frigid temperatures, betrayal, loss and fear. And yet, we can only hope he retrains humanity, knowing it is both his weakness in a cruel world and his greatest strength.
Hundreds of kilometers away in Germany, in a farming area near the prime Allied target of Berlin, Frida has a marginally better fate. They have food and a bunker in the family home. But they face the terror of Allied bombers and the realization that the German Reich is a toppling failed state built on lies.
Frida, much like Jakob, is caught between two warring powers: the SS troops in their desperate hunt for traitors and the Allies laying waste as they march toward Berlin.
As always in a Kalteis novel dark humour abounds. Frida’s family laments the dismal rations they live on “We won’t see the SS men come to help hide the Easter eggs. Like they didn’t come at Christmas, not bringing a tree and singing ‘O Tannenbaum,’ and not passing out the holiday birds,”
Jakob, against all odds, arrives in the wreckage of Berlin only to find frail seniors and frightened children are left to guard against the Russian advance. He meets a half-mad resident in tattered clothes: “Welcome, welcome, friends. It may not be exactly like the travel brochures, but on the plus side, there’s plenty of vacancy . . .”
It would be unfair to equate the horrific privations of the Second World War to our current political psycho drama. Still today’s headlines built on outrageous lies have echoes in the falsehoods of Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich, which crumbled to dust in a matter of years.
Jakob is assured that the Führer was close by, standing with the loyal troops to guard the shattered city. Jakob wasn’t buying it, “thinking of the Austrian corporal bringing about the failure of a nation, [was] more likely hiding in his bunker.”
Kalteis writes at the novel’s end that Rust and Bones is a mixture of fact and fiction, “a journey through history’s shadows, balancing reverence for the past with its lasting scars.”
He makes no claims about our present day, but a reader can’t but wonder if the lessons of the past are forgotten.
Rust and Bone is a departure for those who know and love Dietrich Kalteis’s contemporary and historical thrillers.
This is set in the ugly blood-soaked dying days of the Second World War. It is a coming-of-age story of a cast of characters, most notably Jakob Fritsch, a boy whose journey to manhood marches through the worst of humanity. And Frida Beckmann, another resourceful teen who also endures loss, fear and uncertainty while hoping for love and family, if any boys are left alive.
Kalteis tells their separate journeys in tandem.
Jakob is born into a German family whose farm in Ukraine is overrun by vengeful Russian soldiers. Their village of Salistal is destroyed and its citizens are loaded on a freight train, bound for work camps or death. The train is bombed off the rails by the Luftwaffe. Russians on one side, Germans on the other, the people of Salistal are caught between two warring powers with no allies and little hope.
Jakob flees from the derailed train but is separated from his family.
He joins a rag-tag group hiding from enemies on both sides. He endured near starvation, frigid temperatures, betrayal, loss and fear. And yet, we can only hope he retrains humanity, knowing it is both his weakness in a cruel world and his greatest strength.
Hundreds of kilometers away in Germany, in a farming area near the prime Allied target of Berlin, Frida has a marginally better fate. They have food and a bunker in the family home. But they face the terror of Allied bombers and the realization that the German Reich is a toppling failed state built on lies.
Frida, much like Jakob, is caught between two warring powers: the SS troops in their desperate hunt for traitors and the Allies laying waste as they march toward Berlin.
As always in a Kalteis novel dark humour abounds. Frida’s family laments the dismal rations they live on “We won’t see the SS men come to help hide the Easter eggs. Like they didn’t come at Christmas, not bringing a tree and singing ‘O Tannenbaum,’ and not passing out the holiday birds,”
Jakob, against all odds, arrives in the wreckage of Berlin only to find frail seniors and frightened children are left to guard against the Russian advance. He meets a half-mad resident in tattered clothes: “Welcome, welcome, friends. It may not be exactly like the travel brochures, but on the plus side, there’s plenty of vacancy . . .”
It would be unfair to equate the horrific privations of the Second World War to our current political psycho drama. Still today’s headlines built on outrageous lies have echoes in the falsehoods of Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich, which crumbled to dust in a matter of years.
Jakob is assured that the Führer was close by, standing with the loyal troops to guard the shattered city. Jakob wasn’t buying it, “thinking of the Austrian corporal bringing about the failure of a nation, [was] more likely hiding in his bunker.”
Kalteis writes at the novel’s end that Rust and Bones is a mixture of fact and fiction, “a journey through history’s shadows, balancing reverence for the past with its lasting scars.”
He makes no claims about our present day, but a reader can’t but wonder if the lessons of the past are forgotten.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I received an advance copy of this book. Thank you.
What a powerful book, such a gripping tale of survival.
Young Jakob, a young teenager, lives in a German village in the Ukraine as WWII shows signs of nearing the end. Germany no longer is a force to be reckoned with, and Russia is invading, taken back and revenging their losses. The Russians force the villagers from their homes, Jakob is separated from his mother and younger brother, and corralled into a freight train, destine for a work camp. By chance a lone plane drops a bomb on the train, and though chaotic, some of the prisoners escape. Jakob sets off on his own, only to be joined by is Schoolmaster, a strong Nazi supporter, and the villiage Postmaster, a truly bitter and unpleasant man.
The story follows their journey and struggles as they travel through the Ukraine, avoiding soldiers, begging for food, trying to find shelter, and not completely trusting one another.
A parallel story is told at the same time. A young girl, Frieda, lives in Berlin, I think, and she and her family are fighting to survive there, with daily bomb raids, scurrying to their shelter, her father a POW, taken by Americans, her grandfather, not curbing is tongue and bringing the attention of the German forces to their home. She and her friend try and maintain hope for the future.
This book puts you right in their hearts and minds. It shows their fears, their struggles, their strength, their hopes. Interesting to hear the war from their perspectives as German citizens. A really good read.
What a powerful book, such a gripping tale of survival.
Young Jakob, a young teenager, lives in a German village in the Ukraine as WWII shows signs of nearing the end. Germany no longer is a force to be reckoned with, and Russia is invading, taken back and revenging their losses. The Russians force the villagers from their homes, Jakob is separated from his mother and younger brother, and corralled into a freight train, destine for a work camp. By chance a lone plane drops a bomb on the train, and though chaotic, some of the prisoners escape. Jakob sets off on his own, only to be joined by is Schoolmaster, a strong Nazi supporter, and the villiage Postmaster, a truly bitter and unpleasant man.
The story follows their journey and struggles as they travel through the Ukraine, avoiding soldiers, begging for food, trying to find shelter, and not completely trusting one another.
A parallel story is told at the same time. A young girl, Frieda, lives in Berlin, I think, and she and her family are fighting to survive there, with daily bomb raids, scurrying to their shelter, her father a POW, taken by Americans, her grandfather, not curbing is tongue and bringing the attention of the German forces to their home. She and her friend try and maintain hope for the future.
This book puts you right in their hearts and minds. It shows their fears, their struggles, their strength, their hopes. Interesting to hear the war from their perspectives as German citizens. A really good read.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
'Rust and Bone' grabs you on page one and takes you along on Jakob's difficult journey as he tries to escape the advancing Russian army bent on destroying all Germans in their path. Not all the characters in the book are good people and even the most ardent loyalists can turn in their hour of fear. This is a gripping story of a boy who must tolerate his travel companions and stay one step ahead of the enemy while wrestling with his guilt for leaving his family behind. At the same time, the story of Frida's, a girl caught up in the same war, adds a touch of brightness to the narrative for a while. She too carries the toll of war on her young shoulders.
A satisfying, engaging read!
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Was fortunate publisher send a review copy.
Definitely not a pleasant read -- Germans trying to survive as WWII comes to an end. Still a read that should be read.
The ending had a 'happy' twist that you could see coming and didn't seem to fit the rest of book, and detracted just a bit from the overall lasting effect.
Definitely not a pleasant read -- Germans trying to survive as WWII comes to an end. Still a read that should be read.
The ending had a 'happy' twist that you could see coming and didn't seem to fit the rest of book, and detracted just a bit from the overall lasting effect.
Read
April 14, 2026DNF
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews