In this mesmerizing, genre-bending debut, Alex Landragin has created an intricate literary puzzle designed to be read either as a first-to-last page narrative or by following an alternative chapter sequence that offers a very different reading experience. A Parisian bookbinder is tasked with binding a manuscript called Crossings for a reputable bibliophile. When he goes to deliver the finished book to her, he learns she has been murdered and mutilated. He believes the crime is somehow connected to the manuscript, so, disregarding his client's wishes, he reads it. What he discovers is a dazzling story consisting of three narratives, each as unlikely as the next. The first is a ghost story penned by infamous nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire for an illiterate girl. The second is a noir romance set in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation, purporting to be the work of exiled German Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin. the third is the fantastical memoir of a woman claiming to inhabit many lives across many lifetimes as she searches for her lost love. As the connections between this cast of unforgettable characters grow wider and deeper, their stories merge into an extraordinary tale of separated lovers held captive by an ancient law, finding and losing love again and again. --Dust jacket