Once the Deed Is Done: 'A crime novel in the sense that TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is a crime novel. One in which a whole community is culpable' Financial Times

FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF THE DARK ROOM AND A BOY IN WINTER'This fine novel investigates the fate of displaced people in the hazardous, dirty backwash of the second world war' GUARDIAN'Marvellous . . . a wide-ranging novel that beautifully balances the tumultuous reach of history with the everyday concerns of ordinary people' DAILY MAIL'Powerful . . . Seiffert's writing beautifully captures this devastating moment of history' SPECTATOR'The patron saint of this gripping novel is Bertolt Brecht.This is a fascinating novel by one of our very best writers' JEWISH CHRONICLETo be truly alive means having to make choices.To be truly alive is also, quite simply, to love. Northern Germany, 1945. Dead of night and dead of winter, a boy hears soldiers and sees strangers - forced labourers - fleeing across the heathland by his small town: shawls and skirts in the snowfall.The end days are close, war brings risk and chance, and Benno is witness to something he barely understands.