''Mulisch is a rarity ... an instinctively psychological novelist'' John UpdikeWith an introduction by Thomas HardingPraised for his emotionally restrained psychological portraits, Harry Mulisch was one of Holland''s greatest writers - and his masterpiece novel is now published in the UK with a new introduction.In the bitter final months of the Second World War, the body of a Dutch Nazi collaborator is found on the doorstep of an ordinary family home. The repercussions are complex and terrible: the family is killed and the house burned to the ground; only the twelve-year-old son, Anton, survives. Following Anton as he reckons with this trauma through his life, The Assault is a powerful excavation of resistance and the collateral damage wrought on innocent people in times of war.