HHhH

Laurent Binet author Sam Taylor translator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Published:3rd Jan '13

Should be back in stock very soon

HHhH cover

An astonishing, unforgettable novel: a thrilling Second World War assassination plot told with rare literary brilliance.

This is Operation Anthropoid, Prague, 1942: two Czechoslovakian parachutists sent on a daring mission by London to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich - chief of the Nazi secret services, 'the hangman of Prague', 'the blond beast', 'the most dangerous man in the Third Reich'.

In 1942, parachutists Jozef Gabcík and Jan Kubiš are dropped into Nazi-occupied Prague with orders to kill Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most feared figures in the Third Reich.

Heydrich oversees the Nazi secret services and helps design the machinery of terror across occupied Europe. The parachutists’ mission, known as Operation Anthropoid, depends on secrecy, courage and the support of an underground resistance network. Moving between cramped Prague safe houses and the corridors of power in Berlin, HHhH traces the careful planning of the assassination and the tense days that follow.

Grounded in real events during the Second World War, HHhH is a panoramic work of historical fiction that tells a story of heroism, loyalty, revenge and betrayal.

[An] extraordinary true story... made still better by the way in which Laurent Binet weaves in his own exploits as researcher and detective to uncover the truth * Week *
HHhH is a highly original piece of work, at once charming, moving, and gripping -- Martin Amis
HHhH blew me away. Binet’s style fuses it all together: a neutral, journalistic honesty sustained with a fiction writer’s zeal and story-telling instincts. It’s one of the best historical novels I’ve ever come across. -- Brett Easton Ellis
Magnificent ... unsurpassable ... told with grace and elegance ... exerts a hypnotic sway over the reader ... something of a Greek tragedy and of the splendid thriller ... All the details have such persuasive force that they remain indelibly recorded in the memory of the reader -- Mario Vargas Llosa
By the time I got to the last page of Binet's masterpiece, I had to close my eyes and rethink history. I'm rethinking it still -- Gary Shteyngart
Laurent Binet has given a new dimension to the non-fiction novel by weaving his writerly anxieties about the genre into the narrative, but his story is no less compelling for that, and the climax is unforgettable -- David Lodge
A wonderful, ambitious book, and a triumph of translation -- Colum McCann
A suspenseful work of absolute originality -- Claude Lanzmann, director of SHOAH
A genuine tour de force * L'Humanite *
A great success ... a terrifying story ... a breathless thriller * La Provence *

  • Winner of Publishers Publicity Circle: Hardback Fiction Award 2013 (UK)
  • Short-listed for national Book Critics Circle Fiction Award 2013 (United States)
  • Short-listed for Bookseller Industry Awards: Publicity Campaign of the Year 2013 (UK)
  • Short-listed for IBW Book Award 2013 (UK)
  • Short-listed for Oxford Wiedenfeld Translation Prize 2013 (UK)

ISBN: 9780099555643

Dimensions: 196mm x 129mm x 20mm

Weight: 235g

336 pages