The Trigger by Tim Butcher: Book #41 for 2016
Hunting the assassin who bought the world to war.
In 1914, Gavrilo Mile Princip, a member of the assassin group the Black Hand Gang, shot dead Archduke Franz Ferdinand, ruler of what was then known as Austria-Hungary. This led to a series of events that resulted in the outbreak of World War I.
In this comprehensive book, Tim Butcher presents a full profile of Princip, with a portrait of his childhood and his upbringing and how he came to become an assassin, and I found it fascinating.
What I liked most was that Butcher researched this a lot, and much of the book tells of how he did his research, much of which involved him travelling to the places where Princip lived and speaking to people who knew more about the man himself. My favourite anecdote was about how he almost got banned from Facebook for sending unsolicited messages to several people he believed to be Princip's descendants.
I like how the book became partly a historical essay and partly a travel memoir, and given the subject matter, I was surprised to see that there was some humour used at points; the overall feel of the book reminded me of Laurent Binet's HHhH from a few years ago.
I remember learning about the outbreak of the World War I when I was younger, but never in this much detail. Some of the political bits were a bit overly complex, but there were some fascinating facts that I didn't know, such as how many of Princip's siblings died very young and how he went to assassinate the Archduke as part of a large group of people, but most of the other men gave up after a number of failed attempts.
I thought this was a great book, and much more engaging than a straightforward biography.