The Assistant by Kjell Ola DahlMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a very good translation, in that there are (English) colloquialisms that are almost certainly not in the original text, that are used to give excellent context to the piece.
The story follows 5-6 key characters in parallel stories (in alternate chapters) based in the mid 1920s and 1938. I sometimes found it hard to remember where I had left the characters in one of the decades, but that is more my fault than the fault of the book.
The 1938 part of the story looks at how the Nazis were already planning what was to happen the following year and this added an extra element of intrigue.
The style is very "punchy", in that that a lot of the prose feels like a series of statements. This isn't a criticism, since I think it really suited the subject matter.
It's the first book that I have read by this author but I don't think it'll be the last.
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