Resistance

This debut novel is essentially a boy’s war adventure. It takes place in Norway in the Second World War, and follows 14-year-old Marek and his elder brother, Olaf, as they join the resistance against the German occupation. Acting on their own initiative, they ambush and kill a German officer, in revenge for the rape of Olaf’s girlfriend. Then, on the run in the frozen wilderness, they are rescued by the Norwegian resistance and British Commandos and play crucial parts in an operation to sabotage supplies to a German U-boat base. The novel rarely gets under the skin of any of its characters, some of which are readily recognisable from similar stories; Marek shows courage and resourcefulness beyond his age and experience; and the fates of Marek’s father and the family’s Gestapo persecutor are tied in rather too neatly at the close. However, the story is told well, and is convincing in the details of resistance life, tactics and weaponry and the unforgiving nature of the Norwegian landscape. And what lifts it beyond run of the mill heroics is Simpson’s awareness of the divisions and dilemmas of a country under foreign occupation and the injustice and ruthlessness inherent in war itself, regardless of the justice of the flag under which it’s fought.