Once We Were Brothers: A Novel (Liam Taggart and Catherine Lockhart, 1)

The gripping tale about two boys, once as close as brothers, who find themselves on opposite sides of the Holocaust.

"A novel of survival, justice and redemption...riveting." --Chicago Tribune, on Once We Were Brothers

Elliot Rosenzweig, a respected civic leader and wealthy philanthropist, is attending a fundraiser when he is suddenly accosted and accused of being a former Nazi SS officer named Otto Piatek, the Butcher of Zamosc. Although the charges are denounced as preposterous, his accuser is convinced he is right and engages attorney Catherine Lockhart to bring Rosenzweig to justice. Solomon persuades attorney Catherine Lockhart to take his case, revealing that the true Piatek was abandoned as a child and raised by Solomon's own family only to betray them during the Nazi occupation. But has Solomon accused the right man?

Once We Were Brothers is Ronald H. Balson's compelling tale of two boys and a family who struggle to survive in war-torn Poland, and a young love that struggles to endure the unspeakable cruelty of the Holocaust. Two lives, two worlds, and sixty years converge in an explosive race to redemption that makes for a moving and powerful tale of love, survival, and ultimately the triumph of the human spirit.

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400 pages

Average rating: 9.2

30 RATINGS

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1 REVIEW

Community Reviews

Paukku
May 25, 2024
4/10 stars
As my ranking of two stars indicates, this book was OK. And it truly was. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't really that good. An interesting premise, a kind-of-unique twist in the flooded field of Holocaust books, the story just doesn't deliver what it could have. The writing is less than perfect, with enough erratum to be an ever-present distraction. The characters are more stereotypes than developed personalities who seem to only function as conveyances of didactic information. However, the story really does manage to pull you along and it is an easy read - grammatical errors notwithstanding.

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