Jack, a dying man, entrusts a peacock pendant to his granddaughter, charging her to return it to it’s owner. The book opens different windows on the pendant’s history: Jack’s attempt to give it to the woman he loves after recovering it from a train of confiscated Jewish goods after the war; his disappointed and divorced granddaughter teaming up with a dealer of valuable goods and their growing mutual attraction, and the psychologist whose attempts to help the outspoken young Magyar woman whose dangerous political escapades with her tiny, passionate friend provoke in him an unspoken love.

It is interesting that, like my last reviewed book The Goldfinch, a central theme to this novel is a treasure: a possession that captivates people’s hearts and minds. But in each strand of the story, here, the pendant is not the focus, serving as a mystery and connection that hovers on the edge of the humans whose stories are told.