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A Novel
by Derek B. Miller
Book Reviewed by: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.
Chapter One
PIETRO HOUDINI CLAIMED THAT LIFE clung to him like a curse and if he could escape it he would. His namesake—the Hungarian, the American, the Jew, the illusionist—died in 1926, a full seventeen years before Pietro and I met in the dirt by the side of the road in an Italian village beneath the long shadow of the abbey of Montecassino. I was bloodied and blue, lying in a gutter, and he was standing above me, white and glowing and pristine like a marble god.
In his late fifties, Pietro seemed immortal to me. He had a mane of long, thick white hair to his shoulders, a close beard, an angular face, and a muscular body.
He reached out his hand and I took it.
I had been in the gutter because I had been an orphan fleeing south from Rome after the bombings and I never stopped until a group of boys assaulted me, choked me, and left me for dead.
Pietro had been standing over me for reasons of his own, some of them soon to be announced and declared, others hidden and protected ...
The plot is so much richer than a simple period piece or art heist yarn; everything about it is complex, from the relationships between the characters to the moral ambiguities one must navigate in wartime. The Curse of Pietro Houdini checks all the boxes for truly great historical fiction: authentic, likable characters, exquisite writing, engrossing plot, and absorbing historical detail. I strongly suspect it'll end up on my "best of" list for the year, and perhaps for the decade; it's one of those novels that stays with you long after you've finished it. This is a must-read for fans of World War II fiction, particularly those who've enjoyed novels like All the Light We Cannot See and City of Thieves. Highly recommended...continued
Full Review
(758 words)
(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
One of the characters in Derek B. Miller's novel The Curse of Pietro Houdini is a limping mule named Ferrari. The author notes that mules were used extensively during World War II in the Italian theater, in areas where trucks couldn't go, such as mountain passes and forests.
Mules are remarkable creatures that have been used as pack animals for millennia. The offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, mules inherit the best characteristics of each. They're hardier, eat less, and live longer than horses, and they also have harder hooves, making them ideal for rocky terrain. They're less stubborn but more intelligent than donkeys, which makes them easier to train.
It's not known precisely when mules first appeared, but it's thought...
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