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The Twins of Narvik Part II
British Twins of Norwegian descent are dropped behind into Arctic Norway near the town of Narvik just before the Nazi invasion of that strategic port. They are soon captured by the Nazi elite mountain guards, the Gebirgsjägers, although are thought by the Germans to be displaced local fishermen. The story. that unfolds is of their struggle to survive the war, including their resistance experiences throughout all Norway, including the Heavy Water raids at Vemork.
Intertwined with the above is the tale of two Polish brothers fighting for their Nazi occupied country from France under General Wladyslaw Sikorski. Fate ties these brothers to the twin British Spies when Sikorski's Independent Podhale Riflr Brigade is dispatched to fight the Nazis at Narvik.
This story is the continuation of the tale from the separate novel, The Twins of Narvik Part I.
Intertwined with the above is the tale of two Polish brothers fighting for their Nazi occupied country from France under General Wladyslaw Sikorski. Fate ties these brothers to the twin British Spies when Sikorski's Independent Podhale Riflr Brigade is dispatched to fight the Nazis at Narvik.
This story is the continuation of the tale from the separate novel, The Twins of Narvik Part I.
498 pages, Paperback
Published July 19, 2021
2 people want to read
About the author
David Trawinski
18 books9 followersDavid Trawinski retired after 35 years at the end of 2015. Since then, he has enjoyed combining his love for storytelling, travel and history into the publishing of his four historical novels.
The first three of these are known collectively as The Chopin Trilogy.
"The Willow's Bend" was published in 2016, and tells the story of Stanley Wisniewski, a retired CIA officer. Stanley is brought out of retirement to solve the mysterious death of an executive found drowned in the canals of Amsterdam. During the investigation. Stanley has flashbacks to the story his father told him of surviving Auschwitz concentration camp and war-ravaged Poland during World War II. The two stories intertwine in a dramatic climax in the streets of Warsaw.
"Chasing The Winter's Wind" is both a sequel and prequel to "The Willow's Bend". Stanley is now being pursued across Europe by the CIA. Stanley's backstory of setting up his network in communist Poland is explained, as is his past partnership with his CIA assigned pursuer - Diane "The Huntress" Sterling.
Trawinski's third book, "War of the Nocturne's Widow" finishes this trilogy. Diane Sterling is missing, and the CIA assumes she is being provided shelter by Britain's Secret Service - MI6. A war between the two agencies is brewing.
As the plot unfolds, the past story of Stanley being drawn into Project Osiris is revealed. Stanley's path entangles with the repressive Stasi East German secret police, and its collapse during the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
Trawinski's book "Ever Blooms The Rose", co=authored with his wife Marie, is a historical fiction set in a small north Georgia town at the end of the Civil War. Two Confederate Soldiers return wounded from the Battle of Chickamauga after having survived most of the war. Once friends, they soon become pitted against each other over two women - Deekie, the town's girl orphaned by the war, and Ever, the innocent niece of a corrupt Irish Carpetbagger. Its sequel is the Novel "Guns of The Yellow Rose", the husband and wife team's first foray into the Western Genre.
Trawinksi has also authored a WWI/WWI sage in the two volume "The Twins of Narvik".
The multi-novel series "The Life of Marek Zaczek" will eventually span the period of 1772-1831, including the complete Napoleonic War era.
The first three of these are known collectively as The Chopin Trilogy.
"The Willow's Bend" was published in 2016, and tells the story of Stanley Wisniewski, a retired CIA officer. Stanley is brought out of retirement to solve the mysterious death of an executive found drowned in the canals of Amsterdam. During the investigation. Stanley has flashbacks to the story his father told him of surviving Auschwitz concentration camp and war-ravaged Poland during World War II. The two stories intertwine in a dramatic climax in the streets of Warsaw.
"Chasing The Winter's Wind" is both a sequel and prequel to "The Willow's Bend". Stanley is now being pursued across Europe by the CIA. Stanley's backstory of setting up his network in communist Poland is explained, as is his past partnership with his CIA assigned pursuer - Diane "The Huntress" Sterling.
Trawinski's third book, "War of the Nocturne's Widow" finishes this trilogy. Diane Sterling is missing, and the CIA assumes she is being provided shelter by Britain's Secret Service - MI6. A war between the two agencies is brewing.
As the plot unfolds, the past story of Stanley being drawn into Project Osiris is revealed. Stanley's path entangles with the repressive Stasi East German secret police, and its collapse during the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
Trawinski's book "Ever Blooms The Rose", co=authored with his wife Marie, is a historical fiction set in a small north Georgia town at the end of the Civil War. Two Confederate Soldiers return wounded from the Battle of Chickamauga after having survived most of the war. Once friends, they soon become pitted against each other over two women - Deekie, the town's girl orphaned by the war, and Ever, the innocent niece of a corrupt Irish Carpetbagger. Its sequel is the Novel "Guns of The Yellow Rose", the husband and wife team's first foray into the Western Genre.
Trawinksi has also authored a WWI/WWI sage in the two volume "The Twins of Narvik".
The multi-novel series "The Life of Marek Zaczek" will eventually span the period of 1772-1831, including the complete Napoleonic War era.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 18, 2024
Review from the Polish American Journal
The rating is based on current Amazon rating of 4.8 Stars.
This is the conclusion to Part I and is not a stand alone novel.
THE TWINS OF NARVIK
A novel by David Trawinski 2021 Available from DavidTrawinski.com
Reviewed by Barbara Betlejewska
The Twins of Narvik is a mystery split into two alternating-but interwoven tales, cleverly wrapped around a World War I-II history lesson. The time period of Part I is 1912 to 1939, told from a present- day viewpoint. This book is part of Trawinski’s Churchill Trilogy. Quotes from Winston Churchill are sprinkled throughout the book. The battles in the Arctic port of Narvik, Norway (some of the lesser-known early engagements of World War II) are mentioned.
In the book, a wealthy but elderly Texas oilman hires a private investigation firm, Sterling Investigations Int’l., to ferret out the truth behind his mother’s verbal ramblings – prior to her demise with dementia – about the possible existence of two half-brothers. Naturally, his only son and thus far sole beneficiary impedes the investigation for fear of having to split the inheritance with long-lost relatives coming out of the woodwork. Trawinski has a natural talent to keep one turning the pages to find out what happens next!
One of the team members of Sterling Investigations is a young Polish woman from Poznań named Zofia Czystkowska, nicknamed Zosia. I found it fascinating that Zofia or Sophia in English means “wisdom,” and Zosia is portrayed as wise well beyond her youthful demeanor. As a young Polish-American girl growing up in the United States in the 1960s and ’70’s, I met almost no Polish characters in any books
I read, and the few I did find were often portrayed as buffoons. This is a welcome breath of fresh air! No more rude, loutish, drunk portrayals of Poles
like Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee William’s “A Streetcar Named De- sire.” First and second-generation Polish-Americans seldom had advanced enough command of the English language to write positive Polish portrayals and get published, but that has changed for the better now with the third- and fourth-generations and the advent of self-publishing. (Tennessee Williams, by the way, died of a drug and alcohol overdose).
Part of the history interwoven in the mystery itself is the fascinating story of the Polish codebreakers, who were the first to break the
Enigma code of the Germans, thus paving the way for the ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany. If you Google “Who broke the Enigma code?” Alan Turing of Bletchley Park in the U.K. comes up first, but this is erroneous. Turing was a latecomer to Enigma codebreaking, only amplifying what the Poles had already discovered. The preliminary Enigma code had been broken years before in 1932 by three Pol- ish mathematicians, coincidentally from Poznań. The brilliant young Polish math grads, named Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki, and Henryk Zygalski, who were working in the Polish Cypher Bureau, Biuro Szyfrów. Thanks to their efforts at the Cypher Bureau, the Poles knew 95% of the Germans’ order of battle before the invasion of Poland on the 1st of September 1939. This is an absolutely amazing accomplishment. The tradition continues with the high quality of Polish video gamers today. If you have difficulty
recalling the codebreakers’ names, just remember that “Ray,” “Rush,” and “Ziggy” cracked the Enigma code. Fortunately, there are now more Polish-American writers like Trawinski to set the actual record straight.
If you like to read war books with intel ops, you will like this mystery, lengthy and chock full of details. But if, like me, wartime espionage doesn’t appeal to you, you’ll still find plenty of “chick flick” material included. Romance, family secrets, interpersonal relations, mental illness, DNA identifying lost relatives, father/son difficulties, the avoidable problems caused by excess wealth, power, money, adventure — it’s all there. And, as I said earlier, Trawinski has a natural talent to keep you turning pages to find out just how his clues help solve the mystery.
The rating is based on current Amazon rating of 4.8 Stars.
This is the conclusion to Part I and is not a stand alone novel.
THE TWINS OF NARVIK
A novel by David Trawinski 2021 Available from DavidTrawinski.com
Reviewed by Barbara Betlejewska
The Twins of Narvik is a mystery split into two alternating-but interwoven tales, cleverly wrapped around a World War I-II history lesson. The time period of Part I is 1912 to 1939, told from a present- day viewpoint. This book is part of Trawinski’s Churchill Trilogy. Quotes from Winston Churchill are sprinkled throughout the book. The battles in the Arctic port of Narvik, Norway (some of the lesser-known early engagements of World War II) are mentioned.
In the book, a wealthy but elderly Texas oilman hires a private investigation firm, Sterling Investigations Int’l., to ferret out the truth behind his mother’s verbal ramblings – prior to her demise with dementia – about the possible existence of two half-brothers. Naturally, his only son and thus far sole beneficiary impedes the investigation for fear of having to split the inheritance with long-lost relatives coming out of the woodwork. Trawinski has a natural talent to keep one turning the pages to find out what happens next!
One of the team members of Sterling Investigations is a young Polish woman from Poznań named Zofia Czystkowska, nicknamed Zosia. I found it fascinating that Zofia or Sophia in English means “wisdom,” and Zosia is portrayed as wise well beyond her youthful demeanor. As a young Polish-American girl growing up in the United States in the 1960s and ’70’s, I met almost no Polish characters in any books
I read, and the few I did find were often portrayed as buffoons. This is a welcome breath of fresh air! No more rude, loutish, drunk portrayals of Poles
like Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee William’s “A Streetcar Named De- sire.” First and second-generation Polish-Americans seldom had advanced enough command of the English language to write positive Polish portrayals and get published, but that has changed for the better now with the third- and fourth-generations and the advent of self-publishing. (Tennessee Williams, by the way, died of a drug and alcohol overdose).
Part of the history interwoven in the mystery itself is the fascinating story of the Polish codebreakers, who were the first to break the
Enigma code of the Germans, thus paving the way for the ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany. If you Google “Who broke the Enigma code?” Alan Turing of Bletchley Park in the U.K. comes up first, but this is erroneous. Turing was a latecomer to Enigma codebreaking, only amplifying what the Poles had already discovered. The preliminary Enigma code had been broken years before in 1932 by three Pol- ish mathematicians, coincidentally from Poznań. The brilliant young Polish math grads, named Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki, and Henryk Zygalski, who were working in the Polish Cypher Bureau, Biuro Szyfrów. Thanks to their efforts at the Cypher Bureau, the Poles knew 95% of the Germans’ order of battle before the invasion of Poland on the 1st of September 1939. This is an absolutely amazing accomplishment. The tradition continues with the high quality of Polish video gamers today. If you have difficulty
recalling the codebreakers’ names, just remember that “Ray,” “Rush,” and “Ziggy” cracked the Enigma code. Fortunately, there are now more Polish-American writers like Trawinski to set the actual record straight.
If you like to read war books with intel ops, you will like this mystery, lengthy and chock full of details. But if, like me, wartime espionage doesn’t appeal to you, you’ll still find plenty of “chick flick” material included. Romance, family secrets, interpersonal relations, mental illness, DNA identifying lost relatives, father/son difficulties, the avoidable problems caused by excess wealth, power, money, adventure — it’s all there. And, as I said earlier, Trawinski has a natural talent to keep you turning pages to find out just how his clues help solve the mystery.
December 20, 2021
The second part of the Twins of Narvik story provides the details of the twins Einar’s and Gunnar’s, as well as their dad’s heroic actions during World War II. It also introduces another set of brothers and their entwinement into the series of events. It is a very satisfying conclusion to the story well set in the real WWII historical events.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews