~ 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.