Book review: Melnitz

Charles Lewinsky Atlantic Books, €20.99; ebook, €12.53

Melnitz charts the lives of five generations of the Meijers, a Swiss-Jewish family, from the Franco-Prussian conflict to the Second World War.

When cattle-dealer Solomon Meijer answers a knock at the door on a stormy night in 1871, his humdrum existence is turned upside down.