IT’S 1943 in THE LAZARUS SOLUTION by Kjell Ola Dahl (Orenda, £9.99) and technically neutral Sweden hosts refugees from occupied Norway. The Norwegian Legation is responsible for their welfare, a purpose undermined by the fact that loyalties to left or right count in exile much as they did at home. 

Now the Legation has lost one of its couriers, who was taking money and documents to resistance fighters across the border. They need to know who killed him and why, and hire a boozy, ageing writer, with a background in leftist politics, to find out. 

As mind-bendingly twisty and as playfully philosophical as espionage fiction must always be, the novel also benefits from the peculiar atmosphere of a neutral zone, where a hidden war rages even as the combatants politely tip their hats to each other when passing in the street.