paperback edition (2006)

About the book ‘Amber is freighted with the weight of time and history.’ Five Amber Beads is the story of two men whose lives are woven together as they seek to discover the truth about their pasts. Charley Bernstein works in the London art world and is tracing a family history erased by the Holocaust. In his possession is a diary written by a relative in a labour camp during the Third Reich, and Charley must follow the threads leading from its haunting pages to his own present. In New York an old man, Christopher, is found lying semiconscious on the pavement. There are no witnesses to what has happened to him and he has no form of identification. When he wakes up in a hospital bed he finds he doesn't recognise the city or his own skin. In a state of total amnesia, he must embark on a struggle to regain his memory. When fate brings these two men together they find themselves linked by a unique friendship. Their journey takes them from America to the Middle East and England in an enthralling and moving novel that addresses the nature of identity and belonging.

© Richard Aronowitz 2008