It has been said that this book is prolific author Salv Sammut's first novel set outside Malta. It isn't - there was that book set in Italy but presented as a novel about abortion.

Anyway, this story has nothing to do either with Malta or Maltese issues. It is a story such as one can find in many similar paperback books.

Sabrina Oliveira, the protagonist, is a beautiful young woman working as a waitress in a seedy bar in New York. She is accompanied by her mother, also an illegal, and a widow after her husband was killed by the narcos. Their main preoccupation is to be left to get on with their lives and not attract attention.

But Sabrina runs into an admirer, Rudi Rubenstein, a concert pianist who remains impressed by her unique voice. He offers to coach her.

After some initial hesitation she accepts and goes from success to success. Despite their significant age difference, their relationship quickly shifts from that of benefactor and rescued girl to lovers, after a stormy night.

She thinks she isn't particularly upset because he can't have children.

Then a third person comes forward, Carl Zimmerman, who has been taken on to manage her events. And the wires get crossed ... with terrible consequences.

Underneath all this there is yet a far deeper reality, dating back to World War II and the Dachau concentration camp where her grandfather had been killed and her father tortured.

The consequences lead to our times and the New World. And the Nazi killers get unmasked by the vengeful Mossad.