The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn
Published by William Morrow & Company
Publication date: March 29, 2022
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Bookshop, Amazon
When three members of my family rave about a novel, I really don’t have much choice but to read it, which is how I found myself immersed in the early days of WWII with a young Ukrainian sniper. A female sniper fighting on the front lines in Kate Quinn’s propulsive The Diamond Eye.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko is still a teen and a single mother when Hitler invades Russian territories. A history student and library research assistant she enlists that same day, hoping her marksmanship skills and training will make her an asset to the Army. She’s accepted into a ground force, but is told she’ll be working as a medical aide. No one believes in her skills until an intrigued lieutenant asks her to kill two Romanian officers standing on a porch far in the distance. She does, thus beginning her “tally” and earning her a position as a sniper on the Western front. A position that leads to her being promoted again and again, given her own platoon of snipers, and finally, in 1942 going on a goodwill tour of the United States to try and convince them to join the war in Europe.
First things, first. This is true, all of it, right down to the name. Mila Pavlichenko was a Ukrainian sniper in WWII who tallied over 300 kills, helping to hold back the Nazi onslaught in her homeland. She did come to America and even struck up a friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt. Once again, I’m learning history through fiction. A dangerous concept in America right now as there are so many lies being shouted as truth, but in this case, it is all verifiable. Including the fact that 800,000 women in the Russian empire served in the armed forces in WWII in the air and on the ground. WOMEN in combat in the 1940s. A concept that the U.S. didn’t concede until the 1980s—not that I’m a fan of sending either gender to war is a goal.
Despite the equality between the genders in enlisting, The Diamond Eye repeatedly showed the difficulties Mila faced as a woman. Even once her fellow soldiers took her seriously, she still had to deal with officers who believed female combatants were a ‘perk’ of war. Refusing the advances of the wrong man could end in court martial or death.
Throughout The Diamond Eye, Quinn vividly recreates the environment of war, from the bitter cold of a Russian winter to the minute details of a sniper’s life and role. Instead of the amoral or stone-cold killer stereotype ascribed to these kinds of shooters Mila is a bookish historian and loving mother who wants only to protect her country and get back home to her son. The tally is something forced on her not something she revels in.
Quinn heightens the narrative tension in the novel with a secondary plot involving an assassin in Washington, D.C., but doesn’t overwhelm Mila’s story with this fictional scheme. It dovetails neatly into what is a gripping, intimate novel of one young woman’s incredible voyage from student to war hero and back. The Diamond Eye kept me riveted from beginning to end, including the author’s notes about the real Mila.
One . . . the first cool, measuring glance at the target, the moment the soul falls silent and the eye takes over.
If you’d like to read more about women serving in wartime I highly recommend The Women by Kristin Hannah.
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Kate Quinn is one of my favorite authors of late. I manage a book club of serious readers, all women of a certain age, who gravitate toward historical fiction. We have read and enjoyed The Alice Network, then the Rose Code–my favorite of all her books so far–The Huntress, and The Diamond Eye, my second-to-favorite. Suspense, action, emotion, humor are in abundance, plus stunning research. Now she’s written a novel about women affected by the McCarthy Era. I plan to nominate that book for our next six months’ worth of book club reading.
The Huntress is next on my list. I hadn’t heard about The Briar Club, but that sounds good, too!
Hi Catherine,
I thought the protagonist was Ukrainian? The description states she lived in Kyiv, that’s the capital of Ukraine so I’m confused. Ukrainians and ruzzians are not the same people although we were once part of Soviet Union empire (i.e. colonized forcefully by ruzzia). Given the current war on Ukraine and the ongoing genocide of Ukrainian people there should be no confusion between the two. Also, Hitler didn’t just invade ruzzia. He annihilated Belarus and invaded Ukraine as well which were part of Soviet empire, it should be mentioned. It’s not only ruzzian women who served in the war, there were Ukrainian, Belarusian, Latvian, Lithuanian etc. women serving as well.
You are absolutely correct. I had to think long and hard about this review because I am not a Russian apologist. They are an enemy of freedom and an oppressor. I’m sorry if it came off as insensitive. I based my review on the fictional character’s voice and whether it was the times or her situation she went to great pains to identify herself as Russian first. In the author notes she does the same thing.
At the same time, I do appreciate your POV and am going to change/modify my review for greater historical accuracy.
The beginning of the book places the protagonist in the taiga, an expanse in Russia. I would look it up but my husband is napping in the same room as my favorite books.