If you have read his debut, The 100-Year-Old-Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared then you will know the delightful, wacky style of this fellow. Newcomers will get caught up in the easy, conversational flow which really is the most enormous fun. Here our central character is a black girl from the slums of Soweto with a flair for numbers. She starts her young working life as a latrine emptier, educates herself through a fluke set of circumstances and becomes as ‘assistant’ in a very secret operation that makes nuclear bombs. How she ends up saving King Gustaf V is one of those mad coincidences of life that never really happen but make such excellent reading. Jonasson is ace at creating odd-ball characters and we certainly meet our fair share of them here. As mischievous as the first, spotted with actual people and real events, it is pure escapist, feel-good fun.
On 14th June 2007, the King of Sweden disappears. In 1994 South Africa dismantles six missiles, developed during its brief nuclear weapons programme. In 1961 Nombeko Mayeki is born in a Soweto shack. Seemingly destined for a life nasty, brutish and short, her path takes an entirely unpredictable turn. Because really this story is all about the seventh South African missile - the one that was never supposed to have existed. The one that Nombeko knows far too much about. So now she's on the run and running into twins who are officially one person, a Vietnam vet and a potato-loving Baroness. But the fate of the King of Sweden, and indeed the world, will remain on her shoulders alone.
Praise for 'The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared': 'Imaginative, laugh-out-loud bestseller Daily Telegraph
'Fast-moving and relentlessly sunny ... The plot is pleasingly nimble and the book's endearing charm offers a happy alternative to the more familiar Nordic noir' Guardian
'A mordantly funny and loopily freewheeling debut novel about ageing disgracefully' Sunday Times
'We can't wait to finally escape into this feelgood tale' Stylist
Author
About Jonas Jonasson
Jonas Jonasson was a journalist for the Expressen newspaper for many years. He became a media consultant and later on set up a company producing sports and events for Swedish television. He sold his company and moved abroad to work on his first novel. Jonasson now lives on the Swedish island Gotland in the Baltic Sea.
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