On 7 November 1938, a 17-year-old Polish-German Jew named Herschel Grynszpan entered the German embassy in Paris and shot dead a consular official. Three days later, in supposed response, Jews across Germany were beaten, imprisoned and killed, their homes, shops and synagogues smashed and burned - Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. Based on the historical record and told through his letters from German prisons, this novel begins in 1936, when Herschel is 15 and fleeing Germany, and continues through his trial.
