Florence, August 1944. Fifteen miles southeast of the city, a unit of German soldiers arrive at Il Focardo, the home of Robert Einstein, first cousin of the famous scientist Albert Einstein. Nearby, Robert is hiding out in the Tuscan countryside, while his wife and daughters remain in the villa. Twelve hours later, Nina, Luce, and Anna-Maria are brutally murdered.
In The Einstein Vendetta, Thomas Harding recounts the story of an unthinkable crime, one that unspools to reveal Italy's brutal wartime history-its fall to fascism, antisemitism, and bitter partisanship-and a family's search for justice. Vividly told, Harding threads history and detective story to build an unquiet, haunting testimony. Thomas Harding is a bestselling author whose books have been translated into more than 16 languages. He has written for the Sunday Times, the Washington Post, and The Guardian, among other publications. He is the bestselling author of Hanns and Rudolf, which won the JQ-Wingate Prize for Non-Fiction; The House by the Lake, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award; Blood on the Page, which won the Crime Writers' Association Golden Dagger Award for Non-Fiction; and most recently, White Debt. Harding's previous books have been Sunday Times bestsellers, prize-winning publications and praised by authors including John le Carré, Ben Macintyre, and Max Hastings. "Thomas Harding has carved out a significant reputation as a prize-winning writer, and The Einstein Vendetta makes for deeply shocking reading. This is a gripping, finely researched, superbly written and deeply important book."-Anna Sebba, Spectator "Nazi brutality, and the resulting family pain and grief, is vividly recorded. The Einstein Vendetta shines a light on these forgotten lives and crimes and on the limits of post-war attempts to secure justice. Harding evokes time and place beautifully, while paying forensic attention to detail. The result is a slow burn of cliff-hangers to keep the pages turning."-Clare Mulley, Spectator "Thomas Harding has carved out a niche unravelling unexplained events. The Einstein Vendetta shows that, although more than eighty years have passed since the Wehrmacht and the SS retreated from Tuscany, there is still substantial appetite to nail down the crimes they committed."-Caroline Moorehead, Literary Review "The Einstein Vendetta will tug at your heartstrings and prompt righteous outrage. Harding captures beautifully the general atmosphere of wartime Tuscany, the fear the family must have felt in their last hours and the inhuman toll the executions took. Harding is excellent on the investigations of the case . . . [he] makes them riveting: archival files poured over in search of vital clues, witnesses undone by failing memory, and always the hope that some small cosmic order will be restored by finding the man who ordered the shootings."-Telegraph
"A fascinating tale that tackles the complexities of war crimes investigations and the arduous widening path of reaching some kind of post war justice."-Dan Snow, host of Dan Snow's History Hit
