Book: Beneath a Scarlet Sky
Author: Mark Sullivan
Pages: 526
Read on: Kindle via Kindle Unlimited
Read in: 6-7 hours over three days
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Plot Summary: Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.
In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.
Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.
General Thoughts: I love reading stories and real life-inspired stories about the World Wars. The word 'love' here means that I am fascinated by the wars and the human experience therein. I think it is so important for everyone to read about all sides and all experiences related to these horrendous events as we need to make sure these atrocities are never repeated again.
I was quite excited to start reading this book because this is a true story. Yup, it is a true story that was thoroughly research by the author and then penned down. Pino Lella is a very courageous man, who did the right thing at a time when doing the right thing could get you mercilessly killed.
Things I Liked:
1. I liked that the story was based in Italy at the almost fag end of World War II. The Allies were almost about to win and yet the Nazis were nowhere close to being done. Italy, under Mussolini, was occupied by the Germans and the German War Machine was taking everything that they could from Italy- produce, wine, machinery, cars and able-bodied men. For Pino, a seventeen year-old in Milan, life changed almost overnight once the implications of the German occupation meant that Milan would get bombed by the Allied aircraft.
2. It was interesting to read about how the Catholic Church in Italy set up an underground railroad type of a system to smuggle Italian Jews out to Switzerland. I believe that out of 49,000 Italian Jews almost 41,000 survived! That is such a great number! In this book, we get to see how Father Re, who had a little chapel in the Alps helped several Jewish families to get across the Italian border into Switzerland.
3. Pino is such a brave young man. He immediately starts using his knowledge of the mountains around Father Re's camp to start taking Jewish families across the border. He is also equally quick to agree to start spying on the Nazis once his parents force him to join the German Army's Administrative Wing, so that he wouldn't have to go fight at the front. He risks his life again and again to get vital information for his Uncle Albert, who was a part of the Resistance and who conveyed this information back to the Allies. Pino keeps on going even after personal tragedy and doesn't stop until the war is over! He is such a great character!
4. There are so many little stories of courage, kindness and sacrifice in these dark times, which is always a reminder that people are and can be good! Similarly, the book also has some stomach-turning descriptions of the kind of horrors that people associate (and rightly so) with the war! The Nazi propaganda and their attempted cover-up of the horrors of the Holocaust are also well explained in this book. The Nazis were very secretive and tight-lipped about their atrocities on the Jews, so much so that even their allies didn't know much about it. So, I liked that we got to see such a close-to-the-ground perspective of the war!
5. Getting to read about the gradual collapse of the German War Machine and the things that the retreating German soldiers were doing was also interesting. The loss of spirits, the desperation and also, the vigilante justice meted out by the Partisans in Italy was interesting to read about.
Things I Didn't Like:
1. Just the one thing- this was an annoyingly over-detailed narrative! This book needed some sharp editing! We have the same hike across the Alps described at least seven times in nauseating detail. It is almost like you were there. Seven times over! There are way too many details, way too much description, way too much repetition. I wish the author had used all that energy and converted it into weaving a tighter and more compelling story!
Rating: 3.5/5
This is a very detailed and enjoyable historical fiction read. Do read it if you feel like immersing yourself in a good war story!
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