This was a birthday gift recently, in hard back. I had looked up when the paperback would be released and found that it wouldn’t be until next year, so, my patience ran out and I put it on my birthday list. The Ghosts of Rome is the second in a trilogy called ‘The Rome Escape Line,’ written by this bestselling Irish novelist. I read the first, ‘My Father’s House,’ back in February and wanted to read more. These books are a very satisfying mixture of a thriller with a clear historical background. History is often thrilling of course, but usually at a safe distance!
So we are in Rome in late 1944. The Allies are said to be approaching but Paul Hauptmann, the Nazi commander, pushes this thought away and declares it to be propaganda. The characters all seem tired, exhausted, both Nazi and Italian. There is little food, little sleep due to air raids and an understandable longing, from both sides, for all this to be over.
The focus of this story is the finding of a badly injured airman, who without any agreement is moved into one of the Escape Line’s safe houses. The discussion and then passionate argument comes later. He shouldn’t have been moved there without permission of the group, they don’t know who he is, he might be a spy or an agent, he is too badly injured to be helped, the safe house ( actually a cramped, dirty attic) might be lost because the airman cries out in pain, he could put many other lives in danger. There is much anger, all for ‘good’ reasons. However, the woman who had moved the airman is unapologetic. She couldn’t leave him to die…even if ultimately he will do so.
I said earlier that all the characters were exhausted and it occurs to me that partially this would have been because of the issue of trust. Nobody could be trusted. Every situation could be an ambush, a set up. It was never safe to talk, to express an opinion, to openly discuss a plan. How difficult and lowering to have to live like that for any length of time, particularly if many lives depend on you and you are involved with the illegal and dangerous business of helping people escape.
The uplifting part of the story is the idea of this wildly disparate group of people from a variety of countries, backgrounds and languages all having the same objective: to help others and save them from the clutches of the Nazis and the torture and death that would follow.
So, this is the second book in the trilogy. I hope Joseph O’Connor has nearly finished the third!