This fascinating book is based on the adult book Beethoven's Hair also by Russell Martin. I've read both, and found that this one really had the details that I wanted. Of course, this book is intended for yound adult audiences so the sentence structure is less complicated as is the vocabulary.

The main question of the book revolves around "What caused Beethoven's deafness and his many periods of severe illess in his life?" Beethoven himself hoped that the question would be solved by someone posthumously. When a lock of hair that was lovingly and carefully passed from hand to hand for many years goes up for a Sotheby's Auction, Dr. Alfredo "Che" Guevara and Ira Brilliant jointly purchase the hair and are able to perform a series of forensic tests on the hair which does, in fact, answer the question what was wrong with Beethoven. When the research came out the answer was wildly covered by the media. And, I'm sure, Beethoven himself would be pleased to know the answer.

But, aside from that main question the lock of hair, which was cut from Beethoven's corpse as a momento of the famous composer and musician, how the hair was cared for, and what it meant to its owners provides a very engaging story in and of itself. The hair is wrapped up in the little known national rescue of Jews by the Danes during World War II.

Perhaps one of the nicest additions to this book was an author's note about what it takes to write narrative non-fiction, and some cautionary words about Internet research. It's an English teacher's dream. :)