The hidden book A novel

Manning's (The Paris Mystery, 2023) latest historical novel is based on the true story of a photo album smuggled from the Mauthausen concentration camp and used as evidence to convict Nazi war criminals. Hannah is 13 when her beloved Yugoslavian grandfather, Nico, visits her rural Australian home with a package her mother, Roza, immediately hides. Undeterred, Hannah quickly unearths it and is shocked and horrified to find photographs of concentration camp prisoners, including Nico. Hannah sets out to learn more about the camp and its legacy, even making it the topic of her PhD thesis. But Roza denies her access to the album, even after Nico's death. Hannah's narrative is interspersed with chapters from the points of view of Mateo, the prisoner who created the album; Santiago, who smuggled it out of the camp; and Lena, a young Austrian woman who safeguards the album until the end of the war. Manning is at her best in these dramatic historical sections, while the alternating present-day narratives reinforce the legacy of generational trauma. Recommend to fans of Jennifer Robson, Natasha Lester, and Kate Morton.

Manning (The Jade Lily) offers an immersive narrative of a Holocaust survivor, his daughter, and his granddaughter. In 1987 Australia, 13-year-old Hannah Campbell becomes obsessed with a book of photos brought by her grandfather Nico from Yugoslavia for her mother, Roza. Before Roza hides the book from Hannah, she briefly glimpses images of prisoners at Mauthausen, the Austrian concentration camp Nico survived. Years later, after Hannah delivers her undergraduate honors thesis on Holocaust museums, she asks Roza to let her see the book, and is devastated when Roza says she destroyed it because she found the photos "ugly." A parallel narrative set in 1945 follows Mauthausen prisoner Mateo, who secretly makes extra copies of the photos he's ordered to take. He gives the copies to Nico to smuggle out of the camp, hoping to preserve evidence of the Nazis' crimes. Hannah's narrative then jumps to the present day, after she's weathered a divorce and resumed her PhD studies on European war history , with a focus on Mauthausen. Though Hannah and Roza don't always see eye to eye, Hannah learns to accept her mother's way of coping with their family's painful history. Manning nimbly interweaves the dramatic Mauthausen chapters with her nuanced family portrait and captures Hannah's sense of resolve to honor those who risked their lives during WWII. Readers will be riveted. Agent: Stacy Testa, Writers House. (Aug.)