HHhH (Huh?)

Book review  - HHhH by Laurent Binet

First things first: I am not ashamed to say that I am not quite sure how to say the title of this book.
I've heard people ask for it in different ways at the library desk with varying degrees of hesitancy
'The book with all the 'h's'
'That French book by somebody Binet'
'Four 'h's'
......................and I still don't know.

Is it historical fiction? biography?non fiction?
Once again I'm not quite sure. Mostly a blend of all of the above. Probably.

One thing I do know is that you should read this book. It's the story of Operation Anthropoid in Prague in 1942 and the two Czech parachutists sent on a mission to assassinate the head of the Nazi secret service Reinhard Heydrich. It's also the story of how someone goes about writing a work of historical fiction. The narrative is interspersed with chapters devoted to ruminations on the nature of writing, research, fascinating asides about the author character's personal life and the pitfalls of attemping to write a novel based on fact. I was aware of the books unusual structure before I started it and assumed I'd find it irritating.
I was wrong.
I found myself charmed by the narrator, his devotion to his subjects and the occasional panics he fell into as he risked being swallowed up by his research. The tension builds unbearably towards the end of the book - I wasn't familiar with the story (confession: I kept taking side trips to internet search engines to check if all the things he said happened actually happened) and this book kept me reading well past my bedtime.

Read this book if you like:
thrillers
WW2 books
books about spies
historical fiction
Nazi biograhies
postmodern metafiction