The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman, by Andrzej Szczypiorski (Phoenix, £5,99 in UK)

In the Warsaw of 1943 the arrest of a beautiful young Jewish widow is an almost everyday occurrence. But when Irma Seidenman - blonde, blue eyed Irma Seidenman - is arrested, a local network comes subtly to life; a life where, a change of identity there, and the beautiful Mrs Seidenman lives to a ripe, if not exactly happy, old age. In this elegiac little novel Andrzej Szczypiorski wraps a dark narrative ribbon around both vietims and perpetrators; using a flashforward technique to devastating effect, he recreates the atmosphere of the dying ghetto with extraordinary immediacy.