The Hidden Book

Based on a true story of a secret World War II–era book, Manning’s dual-timeline historical novel highlights the courageous actions of a group of prisoners at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. Spanish political prisoner and photographer Mateo Baca is ordered to document the prisoners and activities at the camp and collate his photographic records into books for top Nazi officials. He secretly makes an extra copy of the photobook that, with the help of Yugoslavian prisoner Nico Antonov and others, is smuggled out of the camp. When a chance encounter with local woman Lena Lang leads to a tentative friendship, Nico trusts her to hide the book. In 1980s Australia, Nico’s granddaughter Hannah Campbell sees the book for the first time. Haunted by the photographs for years, Hannah goes on to pursue a PhD in history in hopes of uncovering the truth about her grandfather’s time in Mauthausen. As Hannah experiences trials in her own life, she comes to understand the significance of the prisoners’ risking their lives so that their history would not be forgotten.