A Nice Piece of Sniper Fantasy and War Fiction
Customer Rating: 
I am writing as:
1)An experienced police officer who is formally trained to sniff out BS
2)A SWAT team member in a large city
3)An NRA Precision Rifle Instructor
4)A competitive rifle shooter
5)A guy who has operated in fog and friction
This book is almost certainly a work of fiction based on a large body of available knowledge, text, interviews, and publications about sniping during WWII. The author has clearly done his research and some of the weaponry, techniques, and tactics described in the book will be familiar to either actual snipers or readers of the aforementioned source material.
Being a fan and owner of WWII era German rifles, I am very well aware of their capabilities. I am also aware of their real-world limitations. Despite the quality of his rifle, ammunition, and optics (as well as the enormous stress in which those items are deployed) the main character describes successful shots which are nearly magical. The protagonist successfully interdicts targets in conditions which even the most highly trained sniper with the best rifle/optics combo would be unlikely to make today. The main character is either the luckiest sniper in history or someone is exaggerating.
There is simply too much dramatic license evident in several scenes. Students of history know all too well about the severe hardships of the Eastern Front. However, the scene where the author describes the Russians as turning to cannibalism and selecting a victim from among themselves upon which to feed is just too much. The author would have us believe that the Russians literally became cannibalistic underground dwellers.
The final scene with "the Viking" is a sure indication of fiction. It's just too perfect and sentimental. It reeks of Hollywood.
It's a fun read up to a point but history buffs and serious rifle shooters will begin to see through the B.S. early on. I admit that I began to feel a little silly by the time I got to the end. It's not as bad as reading some Mack Bolan novel from Junior High but it's not far off on some pages. Read this book as fiction for entertainment because there is a 90% chance that's what it is. Think of it as war fiction based on actual events and technical literature. Anyone who is interested in more accurate representations of this era and subject matter may want to read, "Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936-1949" by Siegfried Knappe and "War of the Rats" by David L. Robbins. YMMV.
Terrible editorial review, but....
Customer Rating: I am buying this book, out of interest in the subject...
But I must say the editorial review is terrible; the subject of the Eastern Front (as we call in the US) is complicated and there were all sorts of atrocities on both sides. The review Amazon has, seems awfully one-sided. My suspicion is that there was a lot of journalistic license taken in writing this one...
But I want to read it anyway. These veterans are almost gone now and their memoirs should be taken down before its too late...
I'll update after I read it. Giving it three stars bcause I have to include a rating to post anything!
excellent read but questionable veracity, perhaps we were duped
Customer Rating: This book is so well written that I did not want to put it down, a comment at least one and probably many other readers have posted here. It has a stilted, blunt, visceral style that conveys the human condition much more effectively, realistically, and believably than Faulkner or Hemingway or any famous writer I can think of. That is why I am disappointed at the questionable veracity of the story. First, the subject's true identity is kept hidden. At this point in time it is probably not important to do such a thing and so I wonder what the real reason might be. Is there, or was there, any Sepp Allerberger at all? Second, you know very well that he could not have remembered the hundreds of intricate details that are described in the story. This must have been made up in an ad hoc fashion to spice up the account, perhaps by the writer, whose background seems nebulous despite some other titles credited to his name, which is misspelled on a title page.
I do recommend this book but suggest that it might well be a fiction that could have been truth. The Russians were certainly as bestial as they are portrayed.
