Once the Deed Is Done: Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026

The new novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Dark Room and A Boy in Winter 'Seiffert writes short, fast narratives about the big historical events that have shaped our time' The Times To be truly alive means having to make choices. To be truly alive is also, quite simply, to love. Northern Germany, 1945. Dead of night and dead of winter, a boy hears soldiers and sees strangers - forced labourers - fleeing across the heathland by his small town: shawls and skirts in the snowfall. The end days are close, war brings risk and chance, and Benno is witness to something he barely understands. Peace brings more soldiers - but English this time - and Red Cross staff officers. Ruth, on her first posting from London, is given charge of a refugee camp on the heathland, crowded with former forced labourers. As ever more keep arriving, she hears whispers, rumours of dark secrets about that snowy night. The townspeople close ranks, shutting their mouths and minds to the winter's events, but the town children are curious about the refugees on their doorstep, and Benno can't carry his secret alone.