by Joe Drape
First published 2009
Jimmy Winkfield stands amid Bolshevik cannon fire in 1919 Russia, facing an impossible mission. The son of a black sharecropper from Chilesburg, Kentucky, must lead a desperate band of Russian nobles and Polish soldiers on a 1,100-mile trek to save over 250 royal thoroughbreds from the crumbling Tsarist empire. At thirty-seven, Winkfield has already lived an extraordinary life, but this journey from Odessa to Warsaw will test everything he knows about survival. For nearly three months, his ragtag group battles gunfire, starvation, and the chaos of revolution. The trek spans pastoral Kentucky to mob-ruled Chicago, from Polish horse country to Red Square's turmoil, from Paris's freedom to Depression-era America's struggles. Winkfield navigates romance and heartbreak while participating in the twentieth century's most pivotal moments. This odyssey will either destroy him or cement his place as an unlikely American hero.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, adventure
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, unlikely-hero
Setting: Chilesburg, Kentucky, Odessa, Warsaw, Paris, Chicago
Period: 1919, 20th-century
304 pages · Kindle Edition · HarperCollins
Content warnings: war