The Readers discussion

I will be interested to hear what you and Gavin make of this book. I really liked it, but it is, as you point out both fiction and non-fiction. I didn’t mind the author’s intrusions into the story at all. I found his musings on how to do the true story justice interesting. And of course, the story behind Operation Anthropoid is fascinating.

I did notice, however, that he didn’t footnote anything or provide an index of his sources and there were a few “facts” that I found questionable. These were just small things, like Disney’s Sleeping Beauty castle being based on the Tyn Church in Prague (maybe Malicifent’s castle, but not Sleeping Beauty’s surely, that is modeled on Neu Schwanstein) and Douglas Sirk being of Czech extraction. It made me wonder about other “facts” presented in the book that I am not informed enough to doubt.

I wonder if playing loose with some of the facts was intentional...to see who is paying attention. These are small details that have no bearing on the story. But equally the color of Heydrich's Mercedes also has no bearing on the story...but whether is was or was not green or black becomes a dilemma for Binet.

This discussion was great. I agree that the more I think of this one, the more I like it. Binet does an incredible job of giving facts, but also showing how he grapples with his topic: what to omit and what to embellish.

Thanks for a great recommendation.