Night of the Assassins

The Untold Story of Hitler's Plot to Kill FDR, Churchill, and Stalin

By: Howard Blum

Narrated by: Michael Kramer

The New York Times best-selling author returns with a tale as riveting and suspenseful as any thriller: the true story of the Nazi plot to kill the leaders of the United States, Great Britain, and the USSR during World War II.

The mission: to kill the three most important and heavily guarded men in the world.

The assassins: a specially trained team headed by the killer known as the Most Dangerous Man in Europe.

The stakes: nothing less than the future of the Western world.

The year is 1943, and the three Allied leaders - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin - are meeting for the first time at a top-secret conference in Tehran. But the Nazis have learned about the meeting, and Hitler sees it as his last chance to turn the tide. Although the war is undoubtedly lost, the Germans believe that perhaps a new set of Allied leaders might be willing to make a more reasonable peace in its aftermath. And so, a plan is devised - code name Operation Long Jump - to assassinate FDR, Churchill, and Stalin.

Immediately, a highly trained, hand-picked team of Nazi commandos is assembled, trained, armed with special weapons, and parachuted into Iran. They have six days to complete the daring assignment before the statesmen will return home. With no margin for error and little time to spare, Mike Reilly, the head of FDR’s Secret Service detail - a man from a Montana silver mining town who describes himself as "an Irish cop with more muscle than brains" - must overcome his suspicions and instincts to work with a Soviet agent from the NKVD (the precursor to the KGB) to save the three most powerful men in the world.

The Night of the Assassins is a suspenseful true-life tale about an impossible mission, a ticking clock, and one man who stepped up to the challenge and prevented a world catastrophe.

©2020 Howard Blum (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

Riveting and Attention Grabbing

I love this book. The quotes. The perspectives. The daring attempts to be remembered.

A Good Listen

The right length for this book. Neither a blockbuster nor too slow for the information content, and a very good narrator.

Recitation of actors and events

Amazing detail, and research the narrative moved along quickly, promoting continued interest meticulously, prepared plans subverted by basic human grade.

very entertaining history lesson

I lived the story, feeling like I was there. it was a nice blend of history and entertainment. i was engaged the whole time.very good read.

Captivating story

Unbelievable and shocking. Hard to believe. A fascinating listen for WWII history enthusiasts. Loved it

Great writing, great story!

Really enjoyed this book...so well-written and well researched. It rather reminds me of "The Day of The Jackal" where the author takes an event in recent history and makes it come alive! Great narration!

Very inaccurate background.

I was raised in Anaconda, MT. The history of the area given is completely wrong while the cultural history is somewhat correct. The author is describing Butte, a neighboring city. So you have to wonder how much more did the author get wrong or not research thoroughly? The story itself is entertaining, narration good. But if there’s misrepresentation of one part, is the rest accurate? Judge for yourselves.

Recommend read for WWII enthusiasts

Great book that was well written. Even though you know the assassination was unsuccessful the author still keeps you guessing the whole way. Great performance by Michael Kramer as well. They are making this book into a tv series and hopefully it does the book justice.

Intriguing and engaging

A good story that I was previously unfamiliar with. Well read. Worth a listen for sure.

Mostly fiction, not really history

History is not just a compelling story, it has to be based on evidence.
As other reviews have pointed out, much of this is simply made up -- the memories, thoughts, conversations, costumes and settings that appear in this book are simply made up by the author, and constitute the majority of the text. One would think that given this artistic freedom, an author would invest a thrilling story, however this one is slow-moving and bloated, as if the writer found himself with so little documented material that he had to inflate the length with a lot of fictionalized encounters, scenes and self-dialogues.
I bought this book because I thought "here's a bit of history I haven't read about before." Well that's because there is so little evidence to write about, one has to make it up!