“At the time, when one thought of a book on World War II Romania, it was the British author Olivia Manning’s 1960 work, Balkan Trilogy, which came to mind. But Latham counseled me that while Manning’s treatment of Romania was on the scale of an epic, Waldeck’s Athene Palace was something even better: an obscure and sparkling little jewel that within the confines of one hotel and the streets around it provided an intimate study of Romanian manners.”