The Tatra Eagle: Tatrzanski Orzel by J Victor Tomaszek, 2012, John Hunt Publishing
The Tatra Eagle is an historical novel climaxing at the 1683 Battle of Vienna, seat of the Holy Roman Empire.
As war in 1680s Europe rages below, Boleslaw Radok shepherds and hunts in Poland’s High Tatra Mountains. His father like all able bodied men is off at war and has neither trained his son in close combat nor left him a sword. Boleslaw is attacked by a wolf and limps home for bandaging, then barely survives a farm raid that kills his grandfather. Four Polish knights kill the brigands then deliver Bole’s fallen father’s sword, a dying comrade’s last wish. Boleslaw struggles with two options: stay on the farm he cannot defend well or follow his father’s path to a life at war.
“Jim Tomaszek writes historical fiction in a way that takes us directly into the era of his hero Boleslaw Radok. The woods, the mountain snows, the markets and the village life become our own as we are led into his life and the character of his culture and environment.” – Professor David Moran