It is 1945. In the dead of a winter’s night in northern Germany a boy called Benno hears soldiers and sees strangers – forced labourers – fleeing across the heathland by his small town. He is witness to something he barely understands.

Rachel Seiffert invokes the perplexities of a wartime childhood in her novel Once the Deed is Done, which was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction 2026.

More soldiers arrive once the war has ended, this time English, along with Ruth, a Red Cross officer who is given charge of the nearby refugee camp.

Rumours of dark secrets swirl, but the townspeople have closed their minds to the winter’s events, and only the town children are curious about the refugees. Benno can’t carry his secret alone.

“A complex, intelligent, deeply compassionate novel about the unglamorous aftermath of war . . . A brilliant piece of storytelling – stubbornly hopeful.”

Andrew Miller