Overview

From the Dagger Award-winning author of Norwegian by Night comes a vivid, thrilling, and moving World War II art-heist-adventure tale where enemies become heroes, allies become villains, and a child learns what it means to become an adult--for fans of All the Light We Cannot See.August, 1943. Fourteen-year-old Massimo is all alone. Newly orphaned and fleeing from Rome after surviving the American bombing raid that killed his parents, Massimo is attacked by thugs and finds himself bloodied at the base of the Montecassino. It is there in the Benedictine abbey's shadow that a charismatic and cryptic man calling himself Pietro Houdini, the self-proclaimed ""Master Artist and confidante of the Vatican,"" rescues Massimo and brings him up the mountain to serve as his assistant in preserving the treasures that lay within the monastery walls. But can Massimo believe what Pietro is saying, particularly when Massimo has secrets too? Who is this extraordinary man? When it becomes evident that Montecassino will soon become the front line in the war, Pietro Houdini and Massimo execute a plan to smuggle three priceless Titian paintings to safety down the mountain. They are joined by a nurse concealing a nefarious past, a café owner turned murderer, a wounded but chipper German soldier, and a pair of lovers along with their injured mule, Ferrari. Together they will lie, cheat, steal, fight, kill, and sin their way through battlefields to survive, all while smuggling the Renaissance masterpieces and the bag full of ancient Greek gold they have rescued from the ""safe keeping"" of the Germans. Heartfelt, powerfully engaging, and in the tradition of City of Thieves by David Benioff, The Curse of Pietro Houdini is a work of storytelling bravado: a thrilling action-packed adventure heist, an imaginative chronicle of forgotten history, and a philosophical coming-of-age epic where a child navigates one of the most enigmatic and morally complex fronts of World War II and lives to tell the tale.

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9781797170558

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Reviews

"""[A] wartime tale, heist thriller, coming-of-age story, and sweeping history and art lesson...A brilliantly imagined World War II saga."" -- ""Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"" ""It's exciting but never strays too far away from a historical character drama and is a unique perspective on the back half of World War II. . . Certainly one of my top reads from this year."" -- ""Colorado Sun"" ""Rich, quirky characters; tragedy, suspense, warmth, and humor...An extraordinary yet realistic story encapsulating the horrors of war."" -- ""BookPage (starred review)"""

Author Information

Derek B. Miller is an author whose first novel, Norwegian by Night, won the Crime Writers' Association's John Creasey Dagger Award and was named a best book of the year by the London Economist and several other major media. His next two novels, The Girl in Green and American by Day, were nominees for the Dagger Award. Born and raised in Boston, he has worked on international peace and security for think tanks, diplomatic missions, and the United Nations. Gabra Zackman knows romance. Her clever and ""thrilling romantic caper"" (Library Journal) Bod Squad series was inspired by the more than one hundred romance and women's fiction titles she has narrated for audio. She divides her time between her native New York City and Denver, Colorado.

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