Frighteningly compelling ... the feel and pace of a court-room thriller. As it approaches its climax, you almost believe this dogged, decent man is going to win through ... superbly researched and tautly written

Tremendous ... Ryback's tenacity as forensic researcher and huge storytelling flair make this a compelling page-turner

Gripping – and thoroughly chilling … The haunting question at the heart of this book is this: if there had been a few more like Hartinger … was there any way the Nazi terror might have been averted? … a fascinating reconstruction

The genius of the book is to present Ryback’s thorough research as a kind of duel between Hartinger and Wäckerle, adopting some of the conventions of modern crime drama … few [Germans] have been held up as war heroes. Ryback’s brilliant book makes a powerful case for honouring Hartinger, an honest man in dishonest times

Gripping … anyone who thinks that Nazism came to power legally and without violence needs to read this account

Forensic, unflinching and utterly compelling … the story of the first killings at Dachau has scarcely been more urgent

An extraordinary, gripping and edifying story told extraordinarily well. I read it with a sense of amazement at the capacity of one good man to stand tall in the face of evil

Amazing … This is history come alive in your hands

Horrifying and heartbreaking … By recounting such striking heroism, he allows us at least to ponder whether, had more good Germans come forward, it all might just have been stopped

Inspiring ... In the gathering shadow of the Holocaust, Josef Hartinger's dogged decency may redeem the German race

All the more startling and important for bringing to life an episode so little known

Finely researched and deeply disturbing

Gripping, revelatory account

Absorbing

Extremely well written, taut and evocative... Despite its complex subject, Butcher makes this an easy and engaging read with his breezy style and fascinating encounters

Illuminating... Butcher achieves something remarkable with Princip. He promotes him quite plausibly from mad man to everyman; a warning to the future whom the future foolishly forgot

Arguably the most important story of the war

As a travel writer, Butcher takes some beating. He packs balls as well as ballpoints

A triumph of storytelling... [A] highly original gem of a book

Informative and powerful

A page-turning exploration of how the forgotten past continues to inform the present... Important, and relevant

[Princip’s] story as Butcher now tells it has a resonance far beyond the Balkans

Elegant, horrifying and enlightening… A book which is not only a good piece of detective work, it is the finest contribution so far this year to the rapidly expanding literature on the Great War

Tim Butcher has produced the most imaginative and singular book on the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War to date. It is a lot more than a study of Princip… It is a piece of expeditionary journalism, an investigation in time, place and spirit, of the highest order

A revealing insight into the mind and journey of the boy who escaped the narrow confines of his village, and whose political aspirations for his native country had such far-reaching effects on the world

Utterly absorbing… If journalism is the first draft of history, Butcher marries both disciplines with boldness and originality – as well as sympathy for his shadowy subject

Insightful and entertaining, this blows the cobwebs off the history of that day

Positive proof that fact can be as gripping as fiction…rich and timely… Amongst so many books published around the anniversary of the First World War, this one stands out

A fascinating investigation… An absorbing read

Despite its serious subject matter, the book is a rollicking read, full of amusing details and sarcastic humour

A brilliant and haunting journey through the Balkans

In the centenary year of the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, what better read than Tim Butcher’s The Trigger

[A] fascinating and lively history

Very complex – but you will grasp it

A fascination exploration

Highly readable but profoundly researched, The Trigger represents a bold exception to the deluge of First World War books devoted to mud, blood and poetry

a fascinating original portrait of a man and his country