The Curse of Pietro Houdini: A Novel
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—that “has the ring of truth and the echo of myth…[deserving of] all the lucky readers who discover it” (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 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 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 “safe keeping” of the Germans.
Heartfelt, powerfully engaging, and in the tradition of Anthony Doerr’s 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.
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 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 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 “safe keeping” of the Germans.
Heartfelt, powerfully engaging, and in the tradition of Anthony Doerr’s 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.
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Community Reviews
I have read other books about Italy during WWII and also about the attack on the monastery of Montecassino, and I did not find this one entertaining or enlightening to any extent. I was a bit bored with the first half of the book. Massimo, is the only character that intrigued me. Readers know from the introduction that a major art discovery is revealed years later. I kept wondering why this was kept secret for so long? I liked the "family" that developed with Ada, Pietro, Massimo, and others and how they tended for the donkeys. That is one thing about the war that I had not known - the extensive use of donkeys to bring supplies to mountain areas. I know my grandparents' village in Italy used donkeys - the streets were very hilly and narrow. Even today, auto traffic is very limited and visitors have to park quite a distance away and walk to their destinations. I was surprised to learn about the Moroccan allies that got involved in the war and their actions in Italy. There seemed to be no rational explanation made for what they did. It is a book of fiction, yet it would have been better if more of it was true.
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