~ Trade Paperback
~ Winner of the Laure Bataillon Award - 1997, Quebec Booksellers Award - 1997, and the Exclusive Books Boeke Prize - 1999
When he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover, and then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is standing trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder . . .
Hailed for its coiled eroticism and the moral claims it makes upon the reader, this mesmerizing novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of postwar Germany.