The Kommandant's Mistress is a highly original first novel that portrays the relationship between the Kommandant of a Nazi concentration camp and the Jewish inmate he makes his mistress. Powerful, disturbing and utterly compelling, Sherri Szeman's book introduces a dazzlingly talented fiction writer.The first part of the novel is narrated from Kommandant Maxmilan von Walther's point of view, while the second is retold from Rachel Sarah Levi's. The book concludes with what appear to be official documents - coldly objective biographies of the principal characters - affording yet a third perspective on the story and its actors. The versions of the story told by Max and Rachel are surprisingly different, yet recognizable as the intimate drama they shared in the camp. This is hardly a love story. The circumstances - and the characters - don't allow that luxury. But it is fiction that explores the complexities of a power struggle between the sexes in which the conventional labels "torturer" and "victim" obscure the unexpected realities of those positions.The narrative moves back and forth in time, gradually revealing what motivates the characters. We see Max and Rachel in the context of their lives before they meet: Max, the idealistic young Nazi; Rachel amid her family in the ghetto. We see their relationship and daily lives in the camp, complete with Max's wife and two young children and with a group of rebellious inmates who torture Rachel. And finally, we see them after the war when each has taken up "normal" life again. The ending is a shock, illuminating still further how differently Max and Rachel understand what has happened to them and what they shared during their time together in the camp.The combination of dark subject and Szeman's sensuous prose style is a risky undertaking, but the author pulls it off to stunning effect. This is absolutely original fiction. Read Less