My Father's House: AS SEEN ON BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS (Rome Escape Line Book 1)

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With his help, guidance and leadership thousands of Jews, Allied prisoners and diplomats were able to be smuggled out of Italy. But, only at times, the different excerpts of the interviews that was written through out did confuse me a little bit of what the connection was. And it was as he was talking about some of his other books that I realised just how long I’ve been reading him. Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she cannot remember.

Thrilling… Based on true events, this tense, gripping narrative is rendered in beautifully evocative prose. He received the 2012 Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Literature and in 2014 he was appointed Frank McCourt Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. There's no doubt in my mind that the Monsignor’s training prepared him to intervene in difficult situations rather than being content to remain a bystander. Included with those fleeing were many Jews who hid among the thousands hoping to find a way to safety. The Vatican City, at one fifth of a square mile the world’s smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome, acted as a safe haven for diplomats, refugees, and escaped Allied prisoners.His home is Vatican City, the world's smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome where the occupiers hold no sway. The city is occupied by German forces and the Gestapo commander, Paul Hauptmann, rules with an iron fist. However, these sections sometimes feel like a cheat in that they are used to convey information that these individuals wouldn't have been privy to. An interesting aspect of this book, for me, involved the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Nazi aggressors. This author uses a highly effective way of developing the main characters (largely, choir members) by inserting a few pages on each, spaced throughout the novel.

The villain of the piece is Paul Hauptmann, Hitler's representative in Rome, and a man with a penchant for torture. A very dangerous business indeed, and the most frightening illustration of the horrific danger here, is the presence of a cruel SS officer, Paul Hauptmann. A hugely entertaining book about the grand scope of friendship and love, it is also, movingly – at times, astonishingly – a story of transience, loss and true loyalty. There's a thrilling true story behind this novel about how a Catholic priest stationed at the Vatican assembles a motley crew to usher prisoners out of Nazi-occupied Italy via the Escape Line.Would The Choir and the Monsignor be able to evacuate all those they hoped to get out of Italy successfully? The story can get overly descriptive and wordy at times, these characters can be a chatty bunch as they reminisce, but their stories do put us right there with Hugh and the people he worked with so closely. It details raw courage and the selfish acts of all those who worked with Hugh to raise funds and find accommodation for the growing number of escapees. It’s September 1943, and German forces occupy Rome, with Gestapo boss, Paul Hauptmann ruling with a terrifying iron fist. From the publisher: Book 1 in the Rome Escape Line Trilogy, My Father’s House is a powerful, heartbreaking literary thriller based on the true story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, who risked his life to smuggle thousands of Jews and escaped Allied prisoners out of Italy under the nose of his Nazi nemesis, Hauptmann.

I appreciate stories that shed light on that era, even more so when I’m learning something new from them. Their choir practice sessions are a front for their efforts toward devising plans to aid escaped PoWs– a mammoth task that encompasses sheltering the escapees in safe houses, acquiring travel documents in false names and arranging transport to Switzerland- a task made more difficult on account of ruthless Gestapo officer Obersturmbannfurher Paul Hauptmann, who was aware of the existence of an Escape Line and was keeping a close watch on Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty in hopes of catching him and /or his friends at the right moment. The novel is told as a countdown to the Rendimento (whose literal meaning is performance) a daring mission which is to take place on Christmas Eve 1943. His vivid descriptions made it possible to see the events in this book/audiobook takin place in my mind.The goose-stepping troops armed with machine guns and gripping growling dogs keep control with spies and surveillance, adding to the horror. The novel’s evocative scene-setting, its propulsive narration and its powerful depiction of bravery and unity in extremis, all make for an engrossing read.

I was drawn to the novel as I know so little about Italian resistance and the plight of POWs held by the Germans in Italy. Vatican City was a neutral zone that housed a huge variety of people coming into the city for protection and a place to find that their life might go on. That torture and murder occurred is not in doubt; that brave sould risked their lives and often lost them is another given. And the Nazis and Hauptmann are snapping at Hugh's heels, certain of his involvement in the escape line. I loved the way the author includes passages made up of short, sharp bursts of descriptive prose that are almost like poetry.

The glory and the incandescence of the human spirit shines so much brighter against the darkness of the failed Fascist ideology. Hauptmann was the Gestapo Officer who had appointed Hugh as the Vatican Envoy thinking that an Irishman would be unlikely to sympathize with English prisoners. The priest began his plotting under the guise of his ‘Choir’ - a group of like minded citizens, determined to outwit the Nazis, putting their own lives at risk. But Hauptmann’s net begins closing in on the Escape Line and the need for a terrifyingly audacious mission grows critical.