"A gripping detective story and haunting memoir. It will leave you breathless." --Walter Isaacson, author of Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, and other bestselling biographies.

The Great Michigan Read for 2013-14. A Washington Post Best Book, 2009. A 2010 Michigan Notable Book.

Beth Luxenberg was an only child, or so her son Steve believed. But secrets have a way of working free of their keepers, as this true story reveals.

Approaching her 80th birthday, Steve's mother told a doctor that she had a disabled sister, without saying that she had always pretended that she was an only child. When Steve learned of his mother's slip, he was mystified. If his mom had a sibling, why had her existence been resolutely concealed for decades?

Following the trail took Steve to Depression-era Detroit and tsarist Russia, the Holocaust in Ukraine and the Philippine war zone. Fascinating human interest; a real-life whodunit.

Beautifully complex, raw and revealing.” -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A wise, affecting new memoir of family secrets and posthumous absolution. . . a poignant investigative exercise, full of empathy and sorrowful truth." -- The Washington Post