O'Nan deftly tells a tale of complex characters in a fascinating city at a pivotal time in history. Brand is an illegal Latvian immigrant in Post WW2 British-Mandate Jerusalem. He has survived German and Russian camps and is the last of his family. He is at times forlorn, even suicidal, and at times sentimental, wanting to become the decent man he once was. He is not a die-hard anti-Mandate activist, but he is aligned to a resistance cell. Brand's false identity papers and st