My Father's House: From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Star of the Sea (The Rome Escape Line, 1)

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Here he’s ambling up the steps to the residence and he grey with the dust from boots to helmet, huge leather gloves on him like a flying ace, and he blessing himself at the Lourdes water font on the hall stand. His journey into heroism is inevitable once he is faced with the stark brutality of a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp and the craven ambivalence of the papacy.

Book Review - My Father’s House - Joseph O’Connor Book Review - My Father’s House - Joseph O’Connor

It’s an incredibly dangerous but tightly-run clandestine operation, and O’Flaherty remains frustratingly out of Hauptmann's grasp. This felt like a mismash of genres—historical fiction, potboiler thriller, and literary fiction rolled, unsuccessfully, into one. His sources include O’Flaherty’s unpublished papers, letters, diaries, telegrams and journalism, as well as a joke borrowed from the late Dave Allen.Distinguished speakers investigate those things in which we believe deeply – and for which we would be prepared to make a costly stand. On Christmas Eve and under the particular surveillance of Gestapo leader Paul Hauptmann, O’Flaherty needs to distribute large sums of money to people in hiding and organise their escape from the city. The Escape Line, headed by Msgr Hugh O’Flaherty, was responsible for saving in the region of 6,500 Allied soldiers and Jews during the second World War.

My Father’s House book review: Irish priest who defied Nazis My Father’s House book review: Irish priest who defied Nazis

This is book one of the Rome escape line trilogy, so I'll be looking forward to the next two release from Joseph O’Connor.Where My Father’s House really shines is in O’Connor’s assembly of the material and his ventriloquistic way with voice. There are near misses, scenes of intense physical suffering and rising jeopardy, particularly as we also see vignettes of Hauptmann’s evening. Any changes made can be done at any time and will become effective at the end of the trial period, allowing you to retain full access for 4 weeks, even if you downgrade or cancel. Joseph O’Connor’s new novel, based on the extraordinary true story of an Irish priest in the Vatican who helped to save thousands of prisoners during the Nazi occupation of Rome, is a riveting tale about the power of community in the face of unfathomable evil.