The girl from Berlin
(Book)

"An old friend summons Catherine Lockhart and Liam Taggart to his popular Chicago restaurant, seeking to enlist their help. A powerful corporation is evicting his aunt Gabi from the Tuscan villa where she has lived all her life, claiming it now owns the deed to her land. To assist them in unraveling this dispute, Gabi sends Catherine and Liam a leather-bound manuscript written by Ada Baumgarten many years ago. Hidden in its pages is a story long suppressed. Ada is the daughter of the first violinist and concertmaster of the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic, and a gifted violinist in her own right. Her opportunities would seem to be boundless but for the fact that she is a Jewish girl growing up in Berlin in the 1930s. As every door is being closed, she forms a deep attachment to her childhood friend Kurt, but their relationship struggles to survive in the growing unrest. As the tides of history turn, and Ada and her family become a target, it is Ada's extraordinary talent that carries them from one perilous situation to another. Ultimately the family must flee to Bologna -- though Italy does not become the haven her family had envisioned, and further heartaches await. What becomes of Ada? Why would Ada's war-time travails raise a defense to the claims of the ruthless Italian corporation? How could Ada's story contain the key to saving Gabi's villa? As Catherine and Liam dig through the layers of lies, corruption, and human evil, an unfinished story of heart, redemption, and hope is revealed-the ending of which is yet to be written."--,Provided by publisher.