Schreiber's SecretTo mark National Tell a Story Day on April 27th, I’ve picked Roger Radford’s excellent thriller Schreiber’s Secret, which I recently narrated.

It may be seventy years since the end of the Second World War and the defeat of Hitler’s genocidal Third Reich, but the terrible events of the Holocaust remain etched into the memories of many survivors still living today.

Publicity surrounding the trial of 93-year-old Oscar Gröning, the so-called “Bookkeeper of Auschwitz” is a reminder that many continue to seek justice for the murder of their relatives and for the countless atrocities in the thousands of transit camps, forced-labor camps, and killing centers set up by the Nazi regime.

In his “masterly written thriller” Schreiber’s Secret, which I was proud to narrate for the audiobook version, Roger Radford lays bare the horror and tragedy of life in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt and its associated “Small Fortress”.

Through the medium of a classic “whodunnit” murder story set in 1990s London, Radford’s novel brings to life the problems of tracking down and identifying perpetrators many years after the war’s end. It raises burning questions of moral guilt like those facing Gröning in today’s courtroom in northern Germany, and explores what it means to be Jewish and live with the legacy of the Shoah in the modern world.

Amongst its many accolades and five-star reviews, readers have the called the novel “unputdownable” and the audiobook “totally absorbing – I didn’t want it to end.”

As the audiobook narrator, I found reading Schreiber’s Secret aloud an engrossing experience, with episodes of high-stakes drama and horrifying barbarity set against a story that ultimately renews faith in the triumph of the human spirit.

Listen to a short extract from Schreiber’s Secret:

https://soundcloud.com/nigelpatterson-1/schreibers-secret-by-roger-radford-read-by-nigel-patterson[/fusion_soundcloud]

If you’d like a free copy of Schreiber’s Secret, click here to start a free 30-day trial membership at Audible.com – or if you would like a reviewer copy, send me a message using the contact form at the bottom of this page.