Book review: The Boy at the Top of the Mountain

INITIALLY one is tempted to view this novel with its story of a young boy and a Nazi theme as a regurgitation of Boyne’s successful The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

It’s an oft repeated motif that could appear tiresome, a field that has been tilled many times before. One can imagine a publisher whispering in the author’s ear: Give them more of the same, of a tried and tested formula.

But this story stands on its own, and the main character is far less naïve than the boy in the previous work. Here we are introduced to the seven-year-old Pierrot, who was brought up half French in Paris, and whose innocence is corrupted fast as he grows into the Germanic Pieter, connecting to the other side of his heritage.