The Curse of Pietro Houdini

A vivid,thrillingand moving World War II art-heist-adventure tale where enemies become heroesallies become villainsand a child learns what it means to become an adult—that “has the ring of truth and the echo of myth…[deserving of] all the lucky readers who discover it” (The Wall Street Journal). August1943. Fourteen-year-old Massimo is all alone. Newly orphaned and fleeing from Rome after surviving a bombing raid that killed his parentsMassimo is attacked by thugs and finds himself bloodied at the base of the Montecassino. It is there in the Benedictine abbey’s shadow that a charismatic and cryptic man calling himself Pietro Houdinithe self-proclaimed “Master Artist and confidante of the Vatican” rescues Massimo and makes him an assistant in preserving the treasures that lay within the monastery walls. But can Massimo believe what Pietro is sayingparticularly when Massimo has secrets too? Who is this extraordinary man? When it becomes evident that Montecassino will soon become the front line in the warPietro Houdini and Massimo plan to smuggle three priceless Titian paintings to safety down the mountain. They are joined by a vivid cast of characters and together they will liecheatstealfightkilland sin their way through battlefields to surviveall while smuggling the Renaissance masterpieces and the bag full of ancient Greek gold they have rescued from the “safe keeping” of the Germans. Heartfeltpowerfully engagingand in the tradition of Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot Seethis is a work of storytelling bravado: a thrilling action-packed art heistan imaginative chronicle of forgotten historyand a poignant coming-of-age epic where a child navigates one of the most morally complex fronts of World War II and lives to tell the tale.