Legacy of Ashes By Herbert Zand, Translated by Pamela S. Saur

The novel, which paints a picture of Vienna of the 1950s, contains a crime mystery of a sort. It introduces a gallery of colorful characters struggling to come to grips with the history of their country with its shifting boundaries of wealth and class. Legacy of Ashes flirts with stereotypes as well as melodramatic possibilities that never quite break through. Simple conclusions about the characters' lives or the city they live in may cpature part of the truth, but never all the nuances. Herbert Zand, born in 1923, was always attracted to the world of books. At the end of World War II he returned to his home village and later to Vienna. Until his death in 1970 — ultimately from his war wounds — he worked for a publishing house and later for the Austrian radio network, suffering bouts of ill health that alternated with periods of literary creativity.