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 adultโthat โhas the ring of truth and the echo of mythโฆ[deserving of] all the lucky readers who discover itโ (The Wall Street Journal).
August, 1943. Fourteen-year-old Massimo is all alone. Newly orphaned and fleeing from Rome after surviving a 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 abbeyโs shadow that a charismatic and cryptic man calling himself Pietro Houdini, the self-proclaimed โMaster Artist and confidante of the Vatican,โ rescues Massimo and makes him an 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 plan to smuggle three priceless Titian paintings to safety down the mountain. They are joined by a vivid cast of characters and 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 โsafe keepingโ of the Germans.
Heartfelt, powerfully engaging, and in the tradition of Anthony Doerrโs All the Light We Cannot See, this is a work of storytelling bravado: a thrilling action-packed art heist, an imaginative chronicle of forgotten history, and a poignant coming-of-age epic where a child navigates one of the most morally complex fronts of World War II and lives to tell the tale.