Alan Duff — Szabad

Vintage 2001 Paperback, 221pp. It is the 1950s. The Soviets and the Secret Police, the Avos, have a choking grip on Hungary and the lives of its citizens. Attila Szabo is one of them, just a teenager, but he's been forced to grow up quickly, with his father having spent most of the last two years locked away in prison. They live in a state-owned tenement: Attila, his parents and the older brother he once adored. In the top-floor flat, a new couple has just moved in, reassigned there by the government. They're clearly from a different class, so why have they been sent here and, more importantly, can they be trusted? But it's the wife who is of interest to Attila: she's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, and his coming fight for his country's freedom is also to become one of passion. (ISBN: 9781740511223). Good.