From Malice to Ashes: Forest of No Mercy (Malice and Mercy Series)
This is a fast-moving historical novel set largely in Lithuania, Latvia and Sweden during the cataclysmic summer of 1941. Through the intertwined journeys of Leva and Al Koslowski—university-educated siblings racing to escape Soviet-occupied Kaunas—and Olek, Leva’s secret lover, the book dramatises the peril faced by Baltic citizens caught between Stalin and Hitler. Vignettes of bribery at borders, sexual menace on trains, and whispered suspicions about “Jewish Bolshevism” build a tense portrait of societies sliding into genocide. Real events—the Soviet mass deportations of June 1941 and Operation Barbarossa—anchor the narrative, while the family’s refuge in neutral Sweden offers a contrasting calm.
As historical fiction, it is excellently researched and generally precise. The chronology of the Soviet occupation (June 1940), the NKVD deportations a year later, and the sudden German invasion on 22 June 1941 is accurate, and the depiction of local militias’ virulent antisemitism tallies with current scholarship. A few minor slips remain: the dialogue occasionally sounds contemporary (“Okay,” “no worries”), and the luxury of Stockholm’s Hotel Kung Karl and the ease of last-minute forged Swedish passports feel convenient. Otherwise, the Baltic and refugee settings are convincingly rendered and the geography—Kaunas to Riga to Stockholm—rings true. Toyn writes in a lucid, cinematic prose, favouring short, suspenseful chapters and alternating viewpoints. The style is accessible and propulsive, closer to quality thriller than to high literary experiment, yet it sustains moral weight, particularly in showing how ordinary choices feed great crimes. Readability is high, with only scattered grammatical infelicities and a few repetitious phrases.
Overall, From Malice to Ashes succeeds as popular historical fiction: well-researched, dramatically paced, and alert to the tragic ambiguities of Baltic history, even if it occasionally smooths the rough edges of wartime chaos for narrative speed.
