Product details
- ISBN 9781529967029
- Weight: 282g
- Dimensions: 130 x 197mm
- Publication Date: 29 Jan 2026
- Publisher: Vintage Publishing
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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**WINNER OF IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 ** THE NUMBER ONE IRISH BESTSELLER**
'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.
‘A superb testament to humankind’s bravery and resilience...moving and immersive’ Guardian, Books of the Year
‘Tremendous and terrifying’ Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times Books of the Year
‘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
JOSEPH O’CONNOR was born in Dublin. His books include Cowboys and Indians, Inishowen, Star of the Sea (American Library Association Award, Irish Post Award for Fiction, France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi, Prix Madeleine Zepter for European novel of the year), Redemption Falls, Ghost Light (Dublin One City One Book Novel 2011), Shadowplay (Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year, Costa Novel of the Year shortlist) and his Rome Escape Line Trilogy novels, My Father’s House, The Ghosts of Rome (Irish Book Awards Book of the Year) and The City of Echoes. His fiction has been translated into forty languages. He received the 2012 Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Literature and in 2014 he was appointed Frank McCourt Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.
www.josephoconnorauthor.com
