Five Reasons Not To Read My Book
I’m going to tell you why you shouldn’t read my book. That might seem like an odd thing for an author to say, but really, I want you to consider these points before you decide to spend your good money buying my book.
1. “This Isn’t About That Einstein”
If you’re expecting Albert’s story, the famous Nobel-prize winning scientist, you’ll be disappointed. Having said that, Albert does play a key role in this narrative. It was Albert who Hitler and his henchmen hated. It was Albert who was on the Nazi blacklist. And it was Albert who had a price on his head. But the Nazis couldn’t get to Albert because he was living out of their reach in Princeton NJ, so instead they went after his closest relative living in Nazi-occupied Europe, his first cousin: Robert Einstein. Which is why the narrative unfolds in Florence, Italy, where Robert lived, amidst olive groves and peach orchards and medieval stone villas.
2. “The Ending Is Unbearable”
The story of the murder of the Einstein family is not for the fainthearted. The killings were brutal. It was very rare for Jews to be murdered by the Nazis on Italian soil (they were typically deported to Auschwitz and other camps) and even rarer for the Jewish person’s Christian relatives to be murdered in their stead. To make matters even more poignant, and more exceptional, the massacre took place just hours before the arrival of Allied forces in Tuscany. As such, this story is deeply distressing. And yet, that is precisely why it is vital that it is remembered, so that similar atrocities do not happen again.
3. “I Never Catch the Killer”
Many of the most popular police shows on television end each week with the hero catching the perpetrators. The same goes for true crime podcasts and crime novels. But real stories don’t always come with such neat endings. Sometimes the cops mess up so badly the case falls apart. Sometimes there’s just not enough evidence. Sometimes the bad guys just get away. Does that mean the story is any less important? I don’t think so. Begging the questions: Who actually committed the murders? Why did they do it? And why have they never yet faced justice?
4. “You’ll Need a Map and a Timeline”
This history might be unfamiliar to many readers. It is about the rise of Mussolini and the German occupation of Italy. It is about the fate of the Jewish population in Tuscany during the Holocaust and how after the war’s end the denazification process took place (or didn’t). It is also about how the Americans conducted their war crime investigators in Florence and the surrounding areas. And how, after the Americans left, the Italian government buried this difficult history in an old wardrobe (literally) until many decades later they opened its cobwebbed door and tentatively began to explore the past. For those curious about these subjects, perhaps this book might be for you.
5. “It Won’t Make You Feel Better About Anything”
This isn’t an inspiring story about how the resistance helped Jews escape Nazi persecution in Italy. Nor is it about how war criminals ultimately faced justice after years of painstaking, tireless and ingenious investigation. Instead it’s about how horror came to a beautiful villa outside of Florence, the heartbreaking consequences that came after and the complicated and frequently frustrating investigations that followed.
If you’ve read this far and you’re still interested, then you understand something important: that real history doesn’t owe us narrative satisfaction. That the Einstein name didn’t protect Robert’s family—it marked them for death. That sometimes the most significant and compelling stories are ones that don’t resolve. THE EINSTEIN VENDETTA isn’t comfort reading.
But it’s true.
Discover the Book
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.
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What to Read Next…
Thomas Harding is the author of “THE EINSTEIN VENDETTA: Hitler, Mussolini, and a True Story of Murder”