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The girl who saved the King of Sweden  Cover Image Book Book

The girl who saved the King of Sweden / Jonas Jonasson ; translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles.

Summary:

Nombeko Mayeki, a chief adviser at the helm of one of the world's most secret projects in South Africa, holds the fate of the world in her hands when she discovers a nuclear missile that was supposed to have been dismantled.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780062329141
  • ISBN: 0062329146
  • Physical Description: 387 pages ; 21 cm
  • Edition: First Ecco paperback edition.
  • Publisher: New York, NY : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2015.
Subject: South Africans > Sweden > Fiction.
Nuclear weapons > Fiction.
Sweden > Kings and rulers > Fiction.

Available copies

  • 1 of 1 copy available at Missouri Evergreen. (Show)
  • 1 of 1 copy available at Montgomery City Public.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Montgomery City Public Library F JON (Text) 31927000008576 Adult Fiction Available -

Syndetic Solutions - Kirkus Review for ISBN Number 9780062329141
The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden : A Novel
The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden : A Novel
by Jonasson, Jonas; Willson-Broyles, Rachel
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Kirkus Review

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden : A Novel

Kirkus Reviews


Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A funny and completely implausible farce about a woman, a bomb and a man's frustrated ambition to overthrow the king of Sweden.Nombeko Mayeki is a 14-year-old latrine cleaner in apartheid-era Soweto who is exceptionally good at her job. Because of her race, she is incorrectly presumed to be illiterate. She gets another job as the housemaid of the nuclear engineer in charge of South Africa's secret program to build six atomic bombs, and in her spare time, she masters Wu Chinese at the library in Pretoria. The engineer is an incompetent fool who accidentally builds a seventh bomb that remains a secret even to his bosses. Soon, Nombeko ships two crates: dried antelope meat to feed herself as she escapes to Sweden and the 1,700-pound atomic bomb the engineer wants sent to the Mossad in Israel. But the packages get switched, and for years Nombeko carts a 3-megaton bomb around Sweden while the Mossad doesn't know what to do with the antelope meat. Meanwhile, Ingmar Qvist's lifelong dream is to abolish the Swedish monarchy. He indoctrinates his identical-twin sons, both named Holger, to carry on after his death. But Holger One is an idiot, and Holger Two, whose birth was not registered and who thus technically doesn't exist, is intelligent. Because Nombeko is an illegal immigrant, she doesn't exist either. And of course the bomb doesn't exist. Can Nombeko and Holger Two prevent the idiot anarchist Holger One and his idiot girlfriend, Celestine, from blowing up the king, themselves and a sizable chunk of Sweden? Author Jonasson is wickedly inventive with a constant flow of absurdities, for which his narrator blames the Almighty: "If God does exist, He must have a good sense of humor." This book follows Jonasson's equally crazy The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (2012).Definitely not a book for sourpusses. The rest of the world will chuckle all the way through it. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.


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