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The Jøssing Affair
J. L. Oakley, author
In the last year of WW II, British-trained Norwegian intelligence agent Tore Haugland is a jøssing—a patriot—sent to a fishing village on Norway’s west coast to set up a line to receive weapons and agents from England via the “Shetland Bus.” Posing as a deaf fisherman, his mission is complicated when he falls in love with Anna Fromme, a German widow with secrets of her own. In wartime, love and trust are not always compatible.
Reviews
In the tantalizing prologue of Oakley’s solid thriller set in 1944 Norway, 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. (BookLife)
