A well written book which makes an important subject accessible to the general reader. Unfortunately, the early portions of the book are a bit dry and tough to get through (or get into), but once the story makes it to wartime Budapest, the book borders on being a page-turner.
The length of the book felt just right, even considering the really sluggish start, and flowed quite nicely once readers were enveloped by the wartime challenges faced by Wallenberg. The entire post-war portions leave one embittered, if not outraged, but ultimately with a feeling of disappointment in the seemingly pointless East-West pettiness that ensued in the early years of the Cold War.
Having read the book while in Budapest, I found the book to be quite an enjoyable/interesting read (other than the first chapter). It's one of Kati Marton's earlier books, but it fits very well with her later books on Hungary and/or Jewish history. It's also an excellent book for anyone interested in a basic overview of Raoul Wallenberg and his incredible accomplishments in wartime Budapest.
With the first edition published in 1982, her epilogue in this re-released second edition (1995) brings a nice post-Cold War close to the book.
On the product (paperback, 2nd ed.), it's of good quality binding and paper with a decent font size, but the print is sometimes unclear or distorted. The typos are few and far between. Neither point is too disturbing, but enough to make them worth mentioning. The book will withstand standard travel abuse and is small enough to carry around easily. Amazon lists the book as 276 pages (or 251 depending on edition), but the story itself runs to 223 including prologue, epilogue and 4 pages of black and white photographs. The endnotes and bibliography make up another 10 pages. Its slow start and print quality make it a 3 star.
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