Twelve-year-old orphan Helene survives by selling newspapers on the street, until one day she unexpectedly befriends a rogue journalist, Marc Aubrion, who draws her into a secret network that publishes dissident underground newspapers. When Aubrion's team is caught by the Nazis, they are given a terrible choice: use the voice of the resistance to create a Nazi propaganda bomb, or be killed. The rebels come up with a plan--while pretending to do the Nazis' bidding, they will publish a bomb of their own that pokes fun at the Reich. The ventriloquists have agreed to die for a joke, and they have only eighteen days to tell it.

Featuring an unforgettable cast of characters and stunning historical detail, E.R. Ramzipoor's dazzling debut novel is a moving and powerful ode to the importance of the written word and to the unlikely heroes who went to extreme lengths to orchestrate the most stunning feat of journalism in modern history.