"H H H H" by Laurent Binet

    Laurent Binet is a French author, and a new novel of his--"The Seventh Function of Language"--was recently published and well reviewed. I had never heard of him, but checking the Library I found that he had written an extraordinary novel entitled: 
                                   "H H h H."
    Yes--that's it. The four aitches stand for "Himmler's Hirn heisst Heydrich," which translates as "Himmler's brain was called Heydrich." The novel is about the rise of Reinhard Heydrich, known as "the butcher of Prague," in the Nazi hierarchy and his assassination in the streets of Prague at the hands of two agents--one Czech, one Slovak--who were parachuted into Czechoslovakia by the British RAF. And there is much about the history of Czechoslovakia and the brutality of the German takeover, culminating in the massacre of the people of Lidice.
    But it is difficult to decide whether to characterize the book as a novel. It is perhaps more like a documentary, with the story woven in with the difficulties of a writer trying to sort out truth from falsehood. This duality is reflected in the blurbs on the cover. David Lodge--one of my favorite authors--sums it up as follows: "Laurent Binet has given a new dimension to the nonfiction 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."
    Martin Amis writes, "HHhH is a highly original piece of work, at once charming and moving and gripping." And someone else 
writes, "A work of absolute originality."
    It kept me glued. Now I must take it back to the Library and wait for the hold I have placed on the new novel by Binet.