HHhH - Laurent Binet

Two men have been enlisted to kill the head of the Gestapo. 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'.

His boss is Heinrich Himmler but everyone in the SS says 'Himmler's brain is called Heydrich', which in German spells HHhH.

All the characters in HHhH are real. All the events depicted are true. But alongside the nerve-shredding preparations for the attack runs another story: when you are a novelist writing about real people, how do you resist the temptation to make things up?

HHhH is a panorama of the Third Reich told through the life of one outstandingly brutal man, a story of unbearable heroism and loyalty, revenge and betrayal. It is improbably entertaining and electrifyingly modern, a moving and shattering work of fiction.

HHhH is Laurent Binet's first novel. He lives and works in France. HHhH won the prestigious Prix Goncourt du premier roman and the Prix des Lecteurs du Livre de Poche.

"Vividly recreates the assassination of Heydrich and its consequences"
Telegraph - John Le Carr

"Laurent Binet's HHhH is hard to categorise. All is can say is that it has the same gravity-defying balance of weight and light as early Milan Kundera"
The Times - Janice Turner

"Utterly amazing ... likely to make you gasp, laugh and cry often within a few pages"
Savidge Reads

"HHhH is a highly original piece of work, at once charming, moving, and gripping"
Martin Amis

"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