The Aftermath, recently released as a film with Keira Knightley, is set in Hamburg just after World War II.

It is a novel based on recollections from the author’s grandfather who was stationed in the city after the war and lived in a requisitioned house along with the German family who owned it.

Rachel Morgan arrives in Hamburg with her son to join her husband, Lewis, a British colonel involved in the rebuilding of Germany. They have not seen each other for seventeen months and neither have they come to terms with the loss of their eldest son who was killed by a stray bomb during the war.

Rachel initially finds it difficult to live in a house with Herr Lubert, a young German widower and his teenage daughter. Both are stricken with grief.

With Lewis totally immersed in his work Rachel is drawn into a relationship with the cultured and dignified Herr Lubert.

Entwined with this storyline are the orphans of Hamburg who form a disparate group amongst the ruins. Bartering items from bombed houses for food they live a feral existence. The descriptions of the devastation caused by the bombing are heartrending, juxtaposed with the celebratory excesses of the army of occupation.

This is a moving story, unsettling at times, but one of love, loss and forgiveness. Rhidian Brook, a regular contributor to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, has given us a lot to think about in this novel.