Helsinki, 1947. Finland teeters between the Soviet Union and the West. Everyone is being watched. At an embassy party, Finnish-American Arnie Koski and Russian Mikhail Bobrov drunkenly challenge each other to a friendly - but
clandestine - cross-country ski race.

But the stakes becomes higher than either could imagine. While the two skiers are unreachable in the arctic wilderness, news of the race is leaked to the media, with Russia's brutal secret police awaiting the outcome...
Another masterful novel from the author of the modern classic Matterhorn.

A brisk geopolitical thriller...The book both honours the struggle for democracy around the world and warns of the dangers of vaingloriousness and naiveté * Washington Post *
Marlantes moves from the jungles of Vietnam to the spectral tundra of a very cold Cold War-era Finland. . . . better than Tom Clancy when it comes to the human element, but he's similarly fascinated by militaria and historical detail * Kirkus Reviews *
Marlantes' well-plotted, briskly moving novel explores the psychological afterlife of war * Booklist *
[A] stirring story of innocents abroad in 1946 Finland as the Cold War is heating up... Marlantes sticks the landing in this satisfying drama * Publishers Weekly *

Karl Marlantes graduated from Yale University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, before serving as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valour, two Purple Hearts and ten air medals. He is the bestselling author of Matterhorn, What It Is Like to Go to War and Deep River. He lives in rural Washington.