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The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden

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The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
First edition (Swedish)
AuthorJonas Jonasson
Original titleAnalfabeten som kunde räkna
TranslatorRachel Willson-Broyles
LanguageSwedish
GenreNovel
Published2013
PublisherPiratförlaget, Ecco Press (1st US edition)
Publication date
25 September 2013
Publication placeSweden
Published in English
20 April 2014
Media typePrint
Pages387
ISBN978-0062329127 (1st US edition)
OCLC859586132
839.73.8
LC ClassPT9877.2.O537 A7313
Preceded byThe Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared 
Followed byHitman Anders and the Meaning of It All 

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden is a Swedish novel written by Jonas Jonasson. The book was first published in 2013 as the second novel of the author, after the best-selling The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, and translated into English by Rachel Willson-Broyles[1][2][3]

Plot

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In 1961, Nombeko Mayeki is born a poor black girl in Soweto. She leaves the slums and in a twist of fate – is run over but survives – this puts her into the employ of the engineer who ran her over, as a cleaner in South Africa's secret nuclear weapons facility. Here, her good head for mathematics leads her to cover for her drunken and incompetent employer. Two Mossad agents eventually murder her employer, but she outwits them and escapes to Sweden with a trio of female Chinese con artists, but due to a mix-up, Nombeko ends up in possession of a missing South African atom bomb. In Sweden, she settles into a condemned building living in a bizarre commune including a pair of identical twins (both named Holger), the youngest of which and his girlfriend are die-hard republicans determined to end the Swedish monarchy. Nombeko and her Swedish boyfriend (the older Holger) are determined to hand the bomb over to the Swedish Prime Minister, but no-one will believe them. Years later, after several attempts to hand over the bomb have failed in absurd circumstances (including the remaining Mossad agent finding and nearly killing them), Holger and his girlfriend kidnap the King and the Prime Minister of Sweden on the spur of the moment from a gala banquet with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Royal Palace in Stockholm, and prepare to blow up the bomb (and everything within a 61 kilometre radius) in order to end the monarchy. Nombeko calms the situation down, saving the King's life, and her own.[4]

References

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  1. ^ Martelli, Sophia (4 May 2014). "The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden review – Jonas Jonasson's unlikely but likable follow-up to The 100-Year-Old Man". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  2. ^ "The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden". Kirkus. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  3. ^ "Book review: The Girl Who Saved The King of Sweden". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  4. ^ "The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden". HC. Retrieved 25 April 2015.