In 1941,
on a sunny July morning, 1,500 Jews living in and around Nowa Kalwaria, Poland,
were rounded up, forced into a wooden barn and set on fire. In the town itself,
blood puddled in the streets as Jews were pulled out of shops and homes and
murdered.
At the
opening of this book, the main character, Halina Shore, a forensic dentist
affiliated with coroner’s office in Sydney, Australia, knows nothing of Nowa
Kalwaria. Although she was born in Poland, she and her mother, Zosia
Szczencinska, immigrated to Australia in 1947 when she was nine.
Halina’s
seemingly perfect life is falling apart. She ended an eight-year-old relationship
with a married lover, Rhys Evans, editor of an influential tabloid, when he
published a damaging article about the coroner’s office. Halina, misled about
the subject of the article, was quoted. Her boss reprimanded her. Then,
testifying in a court case against a man Halina believes to be guilty of
torturing and murdering a child, the jury was unconvinced and let him go.
Seeking a
break, she decides to accept an invitation from the Institute of National
Remembrance in Poland to join a team investigating a mass grave at Nowa
Kalwaria. Their objective is to determine if the victims were killed by the
Nazis – or by local Poles. As the Polish-born president of the International
Association of Odontologists, Halina is the perfect candidate for this team and
has experience with similar teams in other areas.
