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Title details for The Garden of Angels by David Hewson - Available

The Garden of Angels

by David Hewson
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At his beloved Nonno Paolo's deathbed, fifteen-year-old Nico receives a gift that will change his life forever: a yellowing manuscript which tells the haunting, twisty tale of what really happened to his grandfather in Nazi-occupied Venice in 1943.


A Times Best Thriller Book of 2022


The Palazzo Colombina is home to the Uccello family: three generations of men, trapped together in the dusty palace on Venice's Grand Canal. Awkward fifteen-year-old Nico. His distant, business-focused father. And his beloved grandfather, Paolo. Paolo is dying. But before he passes, he has secrets he's waited his whole life to share. When a Jewish classmate is attacked by bullies, Nico just watches - earning him a week's suspension and a typed, yellowing manuscript from his frail Nonno Paolo. A history lesson, his grandfather says. A secret he must keep from his father. A tale of blood and madness . . . Nico is transported back to the Venice of 1943, an occupied city seething under its Nazi overlords, and to the defining moment of his grandfather's life: when Paolo's support for a murdered Jewish woman brings him into the sights of the city's underground resistance. Hooked and unsettled, Nico can't stop reading - but he soon wonders if he ever knew his beloved grandfather at all.

|Nico Uccello's grandfather is dying, and from his deathbed he gives Nico an unwelcome gift: a yellowing manuscript, containing a story Nico must keep secret from his father. Nico loves his grandfather, but as the heart-breaking tale of what really happened in Nazi-occupied Venice of 1943 unfolds, he begins to wonder if he ever knew him at all .

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 1, 2021

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781448304738

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781448304738
      • File size: 943 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      March 5, 2021

      Full of layers, like a Russian nesting doll, this stand-alone thriller from "Nic Costa" series author Hewson has portions set in the present and 20 years earlier, but the core of the action takes place in 1943 Venice. Mussolini's government has collapsed, and the Nazis have taken over northern Italy. The occupying forces are hunting down Jews; some Venetians are cooperating, some are resisting, and many are just trying to evade attention. Paolo Uccello, a shy teenage orphan now left to run his family's failing weaving business, comes across a body that has been fished out of a canal. An offhand remark at the scene results in his sheltering two Jewish partisans, one of them seriously wounded. The young woman of the pair schemes to connect with the local resistance, while her brother recuperates and develops a friendship (and more) with Paolo. The explosive climax comes when the roundup, the weaving, the rebellion, and the relationship collide one winter day. The Uccello business survives but is forever changed. VERDICT A good read for those who love their World War II thrillers with a bit of history included. Followers of Donna Leon's "Commissario Brunetti" mysteries may appreciate the atmosphere and the intrigue.--W. Keith McCoy, Edison, NJ

      Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      May 1, 2021
      Hewson, author of the Nic Costa series, jumps back and forth in time to tell the story of the Uccello family, celebrated Venetian weavers of fine velvet, and what happened to them in 1943 during the German occupation. Nico Uccello is a callow 15-year-old when his grandfather Paolo, close to death, shares with him a typed manuscript describing Paolo's role in hiding two Jewish partisans, brother and sister Vanni and Mika, in the family home, the Palazzo Colombina. Then 18, Paolo would prefer to stay out of politics altogether, focusing only on saving the family business, in free fall after the death of his parents, but he agrees to the request of a priest to provide a hideout for the partisans. Moving between the story of Paolo's coming-of-age, including his attraction to Vanni, and those of various other Venetians during the war, particularly notorious ""Jew hunter"" Salvatore Bruno, Hewson displays the gifts that distinguish the Costa series: the ability to bring texture and humanity to multiple characters and to explore significant moments in history through the microcosm of those characters' lives.

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Funding for additional materials was made possible by a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.