WHAT happens when the sins of our youth come back to haunt us? That is the question at the heart of this accomplished first novel.

The Sixth Lamentation, a biblical reference to the Holocaust, looks back at a time of unimaginable inhumanity through the eyes of key characters in a modern-day war crimes investigation.

Agnes Aubret believes her own son died in a concentration camp.

Victor Brionne, a French collaborator who loved Agnes from afar but became bitter when she rejected him, has become so caught up in deceit he no longer recognises the truth.

And Eduard Schwermann, a former SS officer on trial as a suspected Nazi war criminal, claims to be more saint than sinner.

The only man who can get to the truth is Father Anselm, a monk who is drawn into the complicated court procedure when an old man turns up at his priory seeking sanctuary.

A hugely satisfying page-turner that also asks uncomfortable but necessary questions about the past, The Sixth Lamentation is like The Da Vinci Code with soul.

Updated: 10:41 Saturday, April 23, 2005