Jacobson's austere narrative [The Confessions of Josef Baisz] follows out with the clarity of a syllogism its chilling logic. As a newly-conscripted soldier, Josef Baisz finds himself through a series of absurd chances and petty enmities in a position to betray a friend. When he does so, the effect stuns him:

Everyone had got Judas wrong! That was my great discovery. When he pressed his lips to the master's, he did it passionately, with a breaking heart and expectant eye, full of excitement and curiosity, trembling with pity…. He was one of those who loved only what he betrayed; who could love only through betrayal.

And Baisz is another. We follow his appalling career with fascination because its psychology and politics ring so true.

There is never any question about Jacobson endorsing his hero or using him as a stand-in. Baisz reveals himself with terrifyingly flat honesty…. The...