There is much to praise in this complex and ambitious narrative, not least the adroitly handled ticking-clock scenario

Outstanding ... combines a crackerjack plot and multiple nuanced characters with a convincing portrayal of WWII America ... The dramatic twists work to propel the plot to a powerful and moving conclusion.

Taut with suspense ... a compelling novel.

One of the great First World War novels, about a German soldier in a French village, who falls in love with it. It’s full of criticism of how the war was conducted by Germany, so when Hitler came in, it was burnt.

The best of German war books so far

Schlump…was considered anti-nationalistic, anti-heroic, philanthropic, pacifist, pro-French, humanistic, European, quite good-humoured and well-written. A bright book from a dark time… The book burners were completely right: an un-German book

Grimm’s major achievement is his ability to balance such unsentimental accounts of people’s wartime sufferings alongside the unfailing delight of Schlump’s gauche charm

A thoroughly unconventional First World War novel, part fable, part documentary […] non-nationalistic, Francophile, astute, romantic and accurate

[Grimm] combines elements of the picaresque with all the bleakness of First World War literature