Book review of The Curse of Pietro Houdini by Derek B. Miller

The mysterious, flamboyant Pietro Houdini calls himself “Chemist. Painter. Scholar. Master artist and confidant of the Vatican.” Whatever he might or is probably not, to Massimo, the narrator of The Curse of Pietro Houdini, Pietro is a savior. On the day that they meet in August, 1943, 14-year-old Massimo’s mother and father have been killed within the bombing of Rome, and Massimo lies overwhelmed in a gutter. Pietro instantly takes Massimo underneath his wing, and the 2 head up the hill to hunt shelter in a towering abbey within the Italian village of Montecassino.

The Curse of Pietro Houdini boasts a bit of bit of every thing—a very fascinating setting; an account of pivotal, but little-known occasions of World War II; wealthy, quirky characters; tragedy, suspense, heat and humor. Readers will shortly uncover that uncommon, harmful instances name for inventive acts of deception on the half of each essential characters, whose relationship types the center of this unforgettable, cinematic story. Massimo, who narrates the occasions from an grownup perspective, notes: “The man I knew was a thinker and a storyteller and a liar who had as little reverence for the facts as P.T. Barnum.”

The abbey homes over 70,000 manuscripts and works of artwork, many of them moved there from museums for safekeeping in the course of the struggle. Now, with an Allied bombing seemingly imminent, two real-life German officers, Julius Schlegel and Maximilian Becker, are secretly carting them out as shortly as attainable, sending them again to the Vatican. Pietro hatches his personal scheme—”the primary artwork heist inside an artwork heist within the historical past of the world”—to color over three undiscovered Titians and sneak them out with Massimo’s assist. Along the best way, the plotting pair encounter a wealthy forged of characters and endure many suspenseful, heart-pounding and heartbreaking moments.

Derek B. Miller—the creator of How to Find Your Way within the Dark and Norwegian by Night—has proven the vary of his skills in six earlier novels, however this can be his masterpiece: an epic novel that manages to convey a rare but lifelike story encapsulating the horrors of struggle. As Pietro explains, “That’s what art does, my child. It opens our hearts to the human condition.”