The Reckoning

Following on the heels of his book The Forgotten comes a new book about the lives of Canadian prisoners of war in the First World War.

Conditions in German POW camps were generally vile, with soldiers having little to eat but thin soup and putrid meat. Canadian men were used as slave labourers in salt mines and coal mines, and those who refused the work were beaten. Any soldiers thought to have engaged in sabotage were beaten and tortured, and some were murdered.

Some POWs attempted escape, a few more than once, using ingenious and dangerous methods. One soldier attempted to escape by secreting himself in a wicket bask. Others, known to be hearty frontiersmen, did escape and made their way out of Germany using magnetized razor blades as a compass.

In TITLE T/K, bestselling and Governor General's Awardnominee Nathan M. Greenfield explores life and death in the camps, as well as the attempts to run for freedom. These are the forgotten stories of our...