The Assassination of Heydrich is a bit of a strange book as it isn’t exactly a straight history book, but is also somewhat an autobiography of the author Jan Wiener. The autobiography somewhat forms a frame around the story of Heydrich. Wiener escaped Czechoslovakia and eventually (via some prison camps in Italy) joined the Czech resistance as a part of the RAF.
Along with covering his war-time life Wiener’s book covers the Czech resistance, the actions of the Nazis (and Heydrich in particular) in their invasion of Czechoslovakia, the assassination attempt and eventual death of Heydrich and then the Nazi retaliation.
Well told, powerful and interesting, the book covers a section of WW2 that isn’t covered much – the Czech people and their resistance. Must time is given to Russia, France and Poland but Czech seems to be forgotten and ignored (much like it was by the west in 1938).
A great read for anyone looking for some less well known WW2 stories.
Narration by Mark Kamish was good. He was well paced and clear. Where the sections allowed it (it is a non-fiction book) he put in emotion to the characters and their words/actions. There was one point where i felt the ‘voice acting’ was too much: one point during an emotional and sad event that Kamish puts in a large sniffle. I’m not sure if this was intentionally put in to convey the emotions or if Kamish was genuinely upset (he was sounding upset during the section, as one would expect) and the sniffle wasn’t take out of the audio when it was supposed to be. Other than that one too much/audio glitch moment, the narration was top notch.
I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.