First published 2022
Retired FBI agent Vincent Pankoke leads an international Cold Case Team to answer the question that has persisted for generations: who betrayed Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis? Sullivan chronicles how Pankoke and his investigators applied modern FBI techniques to examine tens of thousands of documents, many previously unseen, and interviewed descendants of people who knew the Franks. The team reconstructed the final months before the August 1944 arrest that ended over two years of successful hiding in Amsterdam. Their investigation reveals the methods that kept eight people concealed in a secret annex and identifies the circumstances that ultimately exposed them. Sullivan profiles the investigators, examines the behavior of both the hidden families and their protectors, and presents the suspects who emerged from the evidence. She recreates wartime Amsterdam, where trust was scarce and survival uncertain regardless of wealth, education, or caution. The book presents the team's systematic approach to solving this decades-old mystery and their final conclusion about who was responsible for one of history's most famous betrayals.
Genres: history, 20th-century, non-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: cold-case, historical-mystery
Setting: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Period: 1940s
400 pages · Hardcover · Harper