Striking the right balance between personal insight and political analysis, this biography traces Rosa Luxemburg's development from a humble Polish girl with a keen interest in herding geese to the most important leader of the German Communist Party.

    Leonhart Maurizarius, convicted of the muder of his wife, is languishing in prison. His case has been forgotten by everyone except the imprisoned man and his father, who is convinced of his innocence. The story of how the father provokes first the son of the man who prosecuted the case and then the prosecutor himself to reopen and re-examine the mystery is a narrative at once wise in the ways of human behavior and rich in the dramatization of philosophical concerns.