A powerful tale of love and survival set against the final bitter weeks of the Nazi regime."Gripping ... The Constant Soldier has the pace of a thriller with characters and themes that are nuanced and subtle" The TimesThe pain woke him up. He was grateful for it. The train had stopped and somewhere, up above them, the drone of aircraft engines filled the night sky. He could almost remember her smile . . . It must be the morphine . . . He had managed not to think about her for months now.1944. Paul Brandt, a soldier in the German army, returns wounded and ashamed from the bloody chaos of the Eastern front to find his village home much changed and existing in the dark shadow of an SS rest hut - a luxurious retreat for those who manage the concentration camps, run with the help of a small group of female prisoners who - against all odds - have so far survived the war. When, by chance, Brandt glimpses one of these prisoners, he realizes that he must find a way to access the hut. For inside is the woman to whom his fate has been tied since their arrest five years before, and now he must do all he can to protect her. But as the Russian offensive moves ever closer, the days of this rest hut and its SS inhabitants are numbered. And while hope - for Brandt and the female prisoners - grows tantalizingly close, the danger too is now greater than ever. And, in a forest to the east, a young female Soviet tank driver awaits her orders to advance . . .MORE PRAISE FOR THE CONSTANT SOLDIER"Has the hallmark of a prize-winning good read" Irish Sunday Independent"This has the feel of a modern classic - it's up there with Birdsong and Alone in Berlin as the very best of its kind." David Young, author of Stasi Child"An extraordinary novel, with the intensity and pace of a thriller, and a wisdom and subtlety all of its own. I was gripped to the very last page" Antonia Hodgson, award-winning author of A Devil in the Marshalsea"An elegant and powerful novel which sheds light upon a bleak and lesser known period of the war... William Ryan has conjured up both a gripping love story and thriller" Richard Foreman, author of Warsaw