Rome Escape Line

September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. Gestapo boss Obersturmbannführer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. Hunger is widespread. Rumors fester. The war's outcome is far from certain. Diplomats, refugees, and escaped Allied prisoners flee for protection into Vatican City; at one fifth of a square mile, it's the world's smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome. A small band of unlikely friends led by a courageous Irish priest is drawn into deadly danger as they seek to help those seeking refuge. A deadly high-stakes battle of wits ensues in this astonishing and unforgettable story of love, faith, and sacrifice that explores what it means to be truly human in the most extreme circumstances. The first book in the Rome Escape Line Trilogy, this powerful, heartbreaking literary thriller is based on the true story of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, a man who risked his life to smuggle thousands of Jews and escaped Allied prisoners out of Italy under the nose of his Nazi nemesis.

In the final months of World War II, a clandestine group known as “The Choir” smuggles thousands of escapees out of Nazi-occupied Rome via a secret route known as the Rome Escape Line. When an unidentified airman falls from the sky, The Choir is plunged into lethal danger, and the survival of the Escape Line itself is threatened. “The Choir” is riven with internal tensions and infighting. The organization is in danger of falling apart, which would leave thousands of escaped allied soldiers, POWs, Jews, and objectors stranded in a Rome that is ruled with vicious efficiency by the Nazis. Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, the architect of the Escape Line and acknowledged leader of The Choir, broods inside the Vatican, seemingly paralyzed by what he sees as the intolerable risks of keeping the Escape Line in operation. One man has been given the task of definitively destroying the entire operation and the price of his failure is high-SS Commander Paul Hauptmann's wife and children are under Gestapo supervision in Berlin. Hauptmann is ordered to stay on in the city he both loathes and loves and to dismantle the Escape Line, or watch his family perish. Into this deliriously thrilling melee steps the Contessa Giovanna Landini, a reckless, audacious, and magnetic member of the Italian Resistance who has the nerve to challenge Hauptmann's authority. A beautifully written and expertly crafted historical suspense novel that is bursting with action, atmosphere, and unforgettable characters, “The Ghosts of Rome” is the thrilling follow-up to Joseph O'Connor's best-selling “My Father's House.”