The Nazi forces are marching across Yugoslavia in a mission to establish total control.
Nothing and no one will stand in their way as they press forward on their mission, raping and pillaging along the way.
German troops make a determined push to destroy Tito’s partisans once and for all, forcing them on a desperate march across the mountains in search of a safe haven.
But thanks to intelligence picked up by the bold and beautiful Sasha Janitz, they are able to plan a counterattack.
Captain Tony Davis is left behind to head a hand-picked squad tasked with attacking and disrupting enemy communications.
But his dangerous mission is ultimately leading him towards a final showdown with his old antagonist, SS Colonel Fritz Wasserman.
Christopher Robin Nicole was born on 7 December 1930 in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana), where he was raised. He is the son of Jean Dorothy (Logan) and Jack Nicole, a police officer, both Scottish. He studied at Queen's College in Guyana and at Harrison College in Barbados. He was a fellow at the Canadian Bankers Association and a clerk for the Royal Bank of Canada in Georgetown and Nassau from 1947 to 1956. In 1957, he moved to Guernsey, Channel Islands, United Kingdom, where he currently lives, but he also has a domicile in Spain.
On 31 March 1951, he married his first wife, Jean Regina Amelia Barnett, with whom he had two sons, Bruce and Jack, and two daughters, Julie and Ursula, they divorced. On 8 May 1982 he married for the second time with fellow writer Diana Bachmann.
As a romantic and passionate of history, Nicole has been published since 1957, when he published a book about West Indian Cricket. He published his first novel in 1959 with his first stories set in his native Caribbean. Later he wrote many historical novels set mostly in tumultuous periods like World War I, World War II and the Cold War, and depict places in Europe, Asia and Africa. He also wrote classic romance novels. He specialized in Series and Sagas, and continues to write into the 21st century with no intention of retiring.
A really good read full of action and suspense.I Wanted this book go on and on. I really enjoyed reading this book and I always enjoyed this author's books.
Yet another very absorbing novel in the "Balkan" series ; a book that one can't put down & it's great that evil again is defeated by goodness. Looking forward to reading " The killing ground" the 4th.in the "Balkan" series
“Battleground” eBook was published in 2016 (paper version published in 2002) and was written by Christopher Nicole (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christo...). Mr. Nicole published more than 200 Fiction and Non-fiction books. This is the third book of his four volume “Balkan Saga” series.
I received a galley of this novel for review through https://www.netgalley.com. I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence and Mature Situations. The story is set in 1942 Yugoslavia, with the primary character being British Captain Tony Davis.
Davis, wounded earlier in World War II, has been assigned in the Balkans as a liaison officer. When the Germans invade, he is caught behind enemy lines and joins Tito in mounting resistance to the Germans. He quickly becomes a resource to Tito and earns a position on the German’s wanted list.
When Tito’s forces must move into the mountains to survive and prepare to bring the war back to the German occupying force, Davis volunteers to stay behind to disrupt the German pursuit of Tito. While he knows this may be a suicide mission, he knows that his success is the only way Tito and the partisan army will survive.
There are women around Davis that complicate things, each in their own way. French Sandrine Fouquet is Davis’ girlfriend and second in command. Ruthless but beautiful Sasha Janitz is one of Davis’ and Fouquet’s trusted fighters and has been Davis’ lover for a while when Fouquet was thought dead. Sixteen year old Jelena Brolic has become a partisan and has become very, very close to Janitz. Angela (Blintoft) Wassermann is the wife of the German SS commander. There is a tangle of emotions between the women, with love and hate often combined for the same person.
I found this 6.5 hour read of 232 pages interesting. There was about an equal share of military action and romantic intrigue. The basic plot was interesting, though characters changing their allegiances after only a day or two of mild coercion is hard to believe. I give this novel a 3.9 (rounded up to a 4) out of 5.
This book was provided to me by NetGalley for review. The premise of the book is intriguing, set in occupied Yugoslavia during the Second World War. I was interested in how the author will approach the confusing and ever-changing realities of Serb, Croatian and Bosnian motivations and actions. I have not read any WWII fiction before which dealt with this region of Europe and the actions of the Partisans, the Yugoslav resistance movement. Battleground revolves around Tony Davis, a British officer stationed in Belgrade, who has been caught in the German attack on the country. He is acting as the link between General Tito and the British government. At his side is a reporter turned resistance fighter Sandrine. We follow the story as General Tito's army is under lots of pressure and has to be evacuated into the mountains or be destroyed. On the German side, we have the evil SS Colonel Wassermann who will stop at nothing to kill Tony and Sandrine. There are several other good and evil characters who round off the cast. Battleground is easy to read and finish in a couple of days. The narrative flows quickly and events follow one another rapidly. There were some spelling and formatting errors, but I imagine this was not the final version and those issues will be resolved eventually. There are some things which I did not like about this book. Firstly, it’s a rehash of the same old plot of the great white man who comes and saves the poor natives. This irritates me considering that the Partisans are considered by many to be the most effective resistance movement during WWII. Secondly, the way that main and secondary protagonists manage to get out of impossible situations is quite unbelievable. Additionally, even though there is an effort to have some character development, I never did really feel invested in their fate. So, as a conclusion I would say that if you like action movies like Die Hard, then you will like this book, just don't try to think too much about it.