Fiction
Joseph O’Connor’s writing has the energy and tension of a thriller. Photo: Mark Condren
Six months into the occupation of Rome under Gestapo chief Paul Hauptmann, a badly injured parachutist lands in a walled orchard during an air raid. Around the same time, two American soldiers, Robert Weldrick and Jack Moody, both escapees from prisoner of war camps, arrive in the city. The intertwined fates of these three strangers is the propulsive force driving the second novel in Joseph O’Connor’s excellent Escape Line trilogy.
The book’s predecessor, My Father’s House, fictionalised the work of Vatican monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty and his Escape Line co-conspirators, known as the Choir, as they helped Allied soldiers and Jews escape Rome in 1943.
