The Lost - A search for six of six million

This is the story of a young boy who grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust - an unmentionable subject that gripped his imagination from his earliest childhood. Years later, spurred on by tales of a terrible betrayal, Daniel Mendelsohn sets out to find the remaining witnesses to his relatives' fate. His quest takes him to dozens of countries before it finally leads him back to the small town where the story began - and the solution to the decades-old mystery. This search for the truth behind a family's tragic past becomes a remarkably original epic - part memoir, part reportage, part mystery and part scholarly detective work - and a profound meditation on our fragile hold on the past. Deeply personal, suspenseful and beautifully written, it illuminates all that is lost - and found - in the passage of time.