HHhH, by Laurent Binet

HHhH is tough to classify. It's creative non-fiction, so it... tells a story about a true story?

I'll try again. HHhH is the semi-fictional account of Laurent Binet's attempt to write a non-fiction account of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi Holocaust architect and all-round bad egg.

The extent to which Binet's involvement in the tale is fictional is never made clear. He describes himself essentially as the world's most unreliable narrator, constantly doubling back to point out that some of the information he has given, and presented as fact, is in fact speculation on his part.

At the same time, he constantly points out both the limits of the novel (when trying to describe an incredibly important and exciting real event without somehow debasing it), and of non-fiction (when trying to describe said event with the emotional import that it deserves).

You won't have read another book like it recently, I can pretty much guarantee that. If you can't stand non-fiction then this is an ideal book, because you've got a real life (and terribly exciting) event described like a novel. I'm not a massive history buff, nor am I particularly interested in the Third Reich, but I found this very engaging.

If you're a real non-fiction reader then I suspect it'll offer a very fresh perspective. Tellingly, my parents (who neatly fall on either side of the non-fiction question) both loved and recommended it.

Read by Joshua