"This book transports you to a fully realized Vienna, with its particular architecture, cafe culture, and residual WWII ghosts."

For fans of Donna Tartt and Anthony Doerr, a charming, taut, and compulsively readable exploration of guilt, country, and friendship that follows a young man's relationship with an Austrian college student and her grandfather.

When Alex Vogel is expelled from Stanford for plagiarism, he travels to Vienna to escape the disappointed glare of his parents and to forget about how thoroughly his last girlfriend dumped him. His trip begins promisingly when he meets Johanna, a captivating student with whom he immediately shares an intense connection. He takes a job working for her grandfather and grows close with them both. They provide the sense of family that Alex often failed to find back home.

One afternoon over coffee, Johanna's grandfather asks Alex to spy on a man as a personal favor. Alex accepts. What he observes forces him to consider that Johanna's grandfather may have committed an unspeakable crime. Reluctant to falsely accuse her family, Alex keeps his suspicions from Johanna while he searches for the truth. Unsure whom to believe and desperate to preserve his relationship with Johanna and her grandfather, Alex plunges forward in pursuit of uncovering the past.