Corporal Hitler's Pistol


Corporal Hitler's Pistol is a 2021 historical novel by the Australian author Thomas Keneally.

Synopsis

The novel is set in the northern New South Wales town of Kempsey in 1933, where an old German-Australian, Bert Webber, is rumoured to be in possession of Adolf Hitler's pistol from World War I. When Bert sees Hitler on a newsreel at the local cinema he has a fit and is taken to a psychiatric hospital in Sydney. Hitler's pistol is then used to kill an ex-IRA member on a local farm.

Critical reception

Writing in The Guardian reviewer Susan Wyndham described the book as "a rollicking historical crime thriller", before noting that the author displays a "mastery of narrative technique in a series of cinematic set pieces that propel the story forward while intimately developing the characters."

Awards