Bok Klubb

We can often learn more from a  well-researched and -written historical novel than from a scholarly book  by an eminent historian. This is certainly the case with J. L. Oakley’s  novel The Jøssing Affair about the Nazi occupation of Norway during World War II.

Henry Oliver Rinnan, “a Gestapo unit unto himself with a  maniacal lust for brutal punishment” of his Norwegian country- men, shoots a man before dumping him in a snowy ravine. An elderly  witness to the shooting retrieves the victim and manages to revive him.  Flash back to seven months earlier: Tore Haugland, who has been working  with the Norwegian resistance intelligence service and the British, was  an integral member of the Shetland Bus operation, in which Norwegian  fishing boats transported arms and agents between the Shetland Islands  and Norway. His dangerous work becomes even more perilous after he falls  for Anna Fromme, the German widow of a Norwegian who came to distrust  her before his arrest by the Nazis. After her husband’s disappearance  and presumed death, Anna was suspected of having betrayed him. Then  someone, possibly Anna, informs the authorities that Tore is working for  the resistance. Convinced of her innocence, Tore resolves to unmask the  person who really betrayed him. Oakley effectively recreates a  lesser-known chapter of WWII through well-developed characters and  suspenseful situations