Courage, peril and resistance in wartime Rome
In Nazi occupied Rome, Contessa Giovanna Landini works with the secret Escape Line known as the Choir, smuggling Allied soldiers to safety under Gestapo noses. When a mysterious parachutist falls from the sky and draws the obsession of brutal chief Paul Hauptmann, she is forced into a deadly game where every move could doom them all.
An Post Irish Book of The Year 2025
The Ghosts of Rome
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Courage, peril and resistance in wartime Rome
In Nazi occupied Rome, Contessa Giovanna Landini works with the secret Escape Line known as the Choir, smuggling Allied soldiers to safety under Gestapo noses. When a mysterious parachutist falls from the sky and draws the obsession of brutal chief Paul Hauptmann, she is forced into a deadly game where every move could doom them all.
- Book Synopsis
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'As thrilling, beautiful and sensational a novel as you'll read this year or any year' Sunday Times
February 1944. Six months since Nazi forces occupied Rome. Inside the war-torn city, the Contessa Giovanna Landini works for the band of Escape Line activists known as 'the Choir'. Her mission is to smuggle Allied soldiers to safety, all under the nose of Gestapo boss Paul Hauptmann.
During a ferocious morning air raid a mysterious parachutist lands in Rome and disappears into the backstreets. Is he an ally or an imposter? His fate will come to put the whole Escape Line at risk.
Meanwhile, Hauptmann's attention has landed on the Contessa. As his fascination grows, she is pulled into a dangerous game with him, one where the consequences could be lethal.
Praise:
- 'Thrilling, terrifying and entertaining' Liz Nugent
- 'Vivid and moving' Guardian
- 'A stellar piece of storytelling' Daily Mail
- 'Not just a wartime thriller, but a meditation on how we remember, how we resist and how, even in the darkest times, humanity endures' New York Times
- About The Author
- Joseph O'Connor's fiction has been published in forty languages. His twenty books include eleven novels, among them the million-selling Star of the Sea, Ghost Light, Shadowplay and My Father's House, a Washington Post Book of the Year. His work has been shortlisted for the LA Times Book Award, twice for the Whitbread/Costa and twice for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and has won the Nielsen Bookscan Golden Book Award, France's Prix Millepages, Italy's Premio Acerbi and Premio Napoli, an American Library Association Award, the American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the Hennessy Writer of the Year and Hall of Fame Awards, the Eason/An Post Novel of the Year Award, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, the Irish Pen Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Prix Madeleine Zepter for European Novel of the Year. He is Frank McCourt Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. www.josephoconnorauthor.com
- Product Details
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- ISBN
- 9781529967029
- Format
- Paperback
- Publisher
- Vintage, (29 January 2026)
- Number of Pages
- 384
- Weight
- 276 grams
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 197 x 128 x 26 mm
- Series:
- See all books in this series
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