The Darkroom of Damocles
By W.F. Hermans
Harvill Secker £17.99
FT bookshop price: £14.39

W.F. Hermans is little known outside his native Holland. That should change with this posthumous English version of his 1958 masterpiece.

Fast-paced yet beguiling, The Darkroom of Damocles tells the story of a disillusioned tobacconist during the Nazi occupation of Holland. An insubstantial blond, he meets his exact photo negative – the dark, daring Dorbeck – and ends up on a series of secret missions. At the war’s end, he’s taken for a traitor. Can he prove Dorbeck ever existed?

This is both an existential romp and a witty parable for how events can seem sane in war time, but mad after. Written in dry, delicate style, it reveals an author whose work could do with more exposure.