Bruno Lind is on a mission, though he may not know it. Irene Davies knows she is, but isn't sure it's the right one. Both are haunted by the legacy of a tangled history of love and war. When Bruno returns to Vienna, the city of his birth, after an absence of many years, more awaits him than his memory hinted. Yet Lind is an expert on memory, a neuroscientist of international renown. His own story, dredged from the past, shouldn't elude his explanatory capacities. In this poignant novel, studded with vivid characters and rare humour, Appignanesi returns to the terrain of her acclaimed family memoir, Losing the Dead. Drawing on her intimate knowledge of central Europe, she has created a compelling fiction that is also an exploration of mind and memory.