All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr *****

What a beautiful story this is, set before, during and after World War II. Marie- Laure lives with her father, who is the locksmith at The Museum of Natural History. Werner Pfennig is a young German orphan who lives with his sister  in an orphanage. Marie- Laure is blind, Werner is a genius with radios and transmitters who finds himself in Hitler's Army Youth because of his expertise, Marie's father is a genius with keys. But mostly this is a story of war and its effects on everyone, and the author juxtaposes the hopelessness of war with the beauty of the natural world so effectively.

Much of the story takes place in Saint Malo during  the German occupation- the town to which Marie and her father flee to escape the Germans in Paris.The  other important character is the German sergeant- major who attempts to track down a valuable jewel which seems to be in athe,locksmith's possession. These three threads all come together in Saint Malo in August, 1944.

This book was hard to put down. The chapters were all very short, so you never lost track of a character. Despite being a war story, this was an uplifting novel, showing the basic goodness of so many people. Ken Follett's trilogy of war can't even begin to match this, both for the powerful story, strong characters, and excellent, excellent writing.