"From Vienna in the 1930s to England in the 1940s, and back, The Third Man centers on dispossession, exile, refuge, and the search for justice and humanity. Focusing on two Jewish families as the Holocaust approaches, the book gradually hones in on two individuals who survive-and have to make difficult moral choices. Julie Bernstein at age five is sent to safety in England via the Kindertransport. Growing up there with a foster family, and vaguely numbed by traumatic losses, Julie eventually blossoms, learning to consider and balance her multiple allegiances. Ignaz Natanson, a butcher's apprentice, changes his identity and name as he escapes to England, then joins the British Army. He returns to Vienna, post-war, to track down the person who epitomizes, for him, what Nazi Youth had done to his home. The novel was inspired by the author's family-whose love of life, of music, of philosophy and history, of justice and ethical dilemmas all inhabit this dark yet beautifully drawn world"--