Ageing spin doctor and political guru, Stig Folkesson, celebrates as his far-right Fatherland Sweden Party is elected into the Swedish Parliament for the first time. Soon after, he finds out his mother has died. On her deathbed she has denied his paternity and deprived him of his inheritance. Stig's attempt to prove his heredity takes him on a quest round Sweden and back into Scandinavian Second World War History. In the course of his adventures, he is forced to reconsider the importance he has attributed to genetic inheritance and race. This novel is a blend of topical satire on right-wing...

Dead Zone is an inventive and exciting thriller set during the Second World War. It takes as its starting point, a detail from Antony Beevor's Berlin, in which he describes how a strangely mixed band of deserters surrendered in Poland to the advancing Soviet forces. The novel develops this in an imaginative and suspenseful fashion, following the story of the band through to their betrayal to and capture by the Soviet secret police. The police chief reveals the hitherto concealed backgrounds of each individual before they are taken off to HQ for punishment. The last chapter provides a major...