Jonas Jonasson’s picaresque tale of how one person’s actions can have far-reaching—even global—consequences, written with the same light-hearted satirical voice as his bestselling debut novel, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.
On June 14th, 2007, the King and Prime Minister of Sweden went missing from a gala banquet at the Royal Castle. Later it was said that both had fallen ill: the truth is different. The real story starts much earlier, in 1961, with the birth of Nombeko Mayeki in a shack in Soweto. Nombeko was fated to grow up fast and die early in her poverty-stricken township. But Nombeko takes a different path. She finds work as a housecleaner and eventually makes her way up to the position of chief advisor, at the helm of one of the world’s most secret projects.
Here is where the story merges with, then diverges from reality. South Africa developed six nuclear missiles in the 1980s, then voluntarily dismantled them in 1994. This is a story about the seventh missile . . . the one that was never supposed to have existed. Nombeko Mayeki knows too much about it, and now she’s on the run from both the South African justice and the most terrifying secret service in the world. She ends up in Sweden, which has transformed into a nuclear nation, and the fate of the world now lies in Nombeko’s hands.
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Sexual Content - 3/5
3/5
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Violence - 3/5
3/5
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Language - 3/5
3/5
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Drugs and Alcohol - 3/5
3/5
Summary
Reviewer Name: caipie@hotmail.co.uk The story is about a young African girl, Nombeko, who is a talented and resourceful girl without any qualifications and yet she manages to be a very influential person through a series of life's twists and turns. The story goes from 1 960 to 201 0 following her life. The events in the book are comical and continue until the end of the book mixing in current events throughout the years. The book also subtly highlight the impact racism and society have on someone's life.