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Good People opens in Berlin in 1938 Thomas Heiselberg has grand plans to make the company he works for the biggest market-research group in Europe Meanwhile, in Leningrad, Sasha Weissberg has plans of her own, inspired by the intellectual conversations in her parents’ literary salon When war breaks out and fate brings Sasha and Thomas together, they will both be brought to account Published to rapturous reviews in more than ten languages, Good People is a tour de force: sparkling, erudite, a glimpse into the abyss Its young author, Nir Baram, has been compared to Dostoyevsky and Grossman, and has won several awards in Israel, including the Prime Minister’s Award for Hebrew Literature   In this extract, we find 22-year-old Sasha working as a literary editor of confessions for the NKVD, Stalin’s secret police, under Stepan Kristoforovich, whom everyone calls Styopa At the end-of-year department celebrations Sasha’s husband, Maxim Podolsky, mimics Styopa in a skit written by political prisoners Sasha wants Styopa to give her details of the whereabouts of her missing younger twin brothers, Vlada and Kolya, who were taken away when their parents were arrested, but Styopa pulls her aside to let her know that he is about to be arrested himself In a last act of devotion to his favourite colleague, Styopa assures Sasha that she will be untouched by the disaster about to befall him – and tells her the location of one of her brothers — J G   *     The band started playing jolly music, and the head of the first department came over the loudspeakers ‘Dear comrades, you are all invited to the dance floor’   ‘My health has improved a lot, and I look forward to getting back to work But soon I’m going to want to speak with you’ She was surprised by her defiant tone   Did he understand the equation that had come clear to her on the train? Enough time has passed Without progress in the matter of the twins, I can’t go on working here, and, for my part, you can execute me She was stricken with anguish: maybe she had wasted too much time,