FIND ME AGAIN was well worth the wait. The second in the Rebecca Temple series set in Toronto in the late Seventies finds the sensitive physician still trying to come to terms with the premature death of her husband. While her relationship with her own Jewish family is an anchor, maintaining a friendship with strong-minded Sarah, her mother-in-law, is a challenge. This talented and complex older woman welcomes a former friend from wartime Poland who has brought her daughter to Canada to treat a serious blood disease. A tangled web emerges, with horrifying tales of treachery and savagery when Poland served as workcamp and deathcamp for Jews and ethnics. With this black scene in the background, enter a charming Polish count now working for a mining company mogul who may or may not be the sick girl's father. A historical novelist on the verge of publication, the count spins tales of Enlightenment Europe, intermarriage at the courts, and intrigue with the future Catherine the Great and the last king of Poland. Does his hexadactyly (six fingers) hold the key to a genetic conundrum? Chapters alternate a subtle modern courtship with a historical mystery, and Warsh embraces the scholarship to furnish convincing and often bemusing details of harrowing trips across old Russia and nights in drafty and crumbling palace halls. Her description of the fur-lined sleigh which contains a stove and mattresses, so large that a dozen horses must pull it, conjures up a matchless image. The spectre of the fabled Scottish Young Pretender haunting the courts of Europe adds another dimension to an exciting period. This book is a dazzling and thought-provoking read, a whirlwind tour of a young woman caught in the snares of love, and one also enthralled, who watches from the perspective of centuries, powerless to help, but too fascinated to turn away.
