Author Jodi Picoult is well-known for taking otherwise ordinary characters, throwing them into exigent circumstances and watching them closely to see the best and worst that could happen. Her previous books have, after all, seen a girl who rebels against the fact that she was conceived as a bone marrow match for her ailing sister, teenager lovers making what seems like a suicide pact, and communities unravelling after au00a0single incident.

Jewish civilians forced to march by SS soldiers during the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in occupied Poland in 1943. Author Jodi Picoult’s new book explores a moral dilemma connected with the Holocaust. Getty Images (Courtesy of the National Archives/Newsmakers)