I tried taking this one in smaller bites and just reading a few pages a night, but it didn't work for me. It’s the story of tremendous bravery and sacrifice, and is based on the true story of Hugh O’Flaherty. A hugely entertaining book about the grand scope of friendship and love, it is also, movingly – at times, astonishingly – a story of transience, loss and true loyalty. The patterning of narrative, commentary, narrative etc, worked well to begin with but became repetitive by the halfway point. The city is occupied by German forces and the Gestapo commander, Paul Hauptmann, rules with an iron fist.

What an ensemble of narrators: Aoife Duffin; Gertrude Toma; Barry Barnes; Stephen Hogan; Barnaby Edwards; Laurence Bouvard; David John; Roberto Davide; Thomas Hill.

O Flaherty’s anti-Nazi stance earns him the ire of his superiors at The Vatican, which pursued a policy of neutrality during World War II, but does not deter his efforts in doing as much he could for those in need of his help. It is an unforgettable novel of love, sacrifice and what it means to be human in the most extreme circumstances. In a narrative that shifts from 1943 and the future, we are given insights and experiences of the period through the perspectives in the 1960s of the widely disparate and fascinating cast of the Choir, that included the likes of Sir Guy D'Arcy Osborne, the wily John May who can get his hands on almost anything, the beautiful and grieving Contessa Landini and 40 year old singer and diplomat's wife, Delia Kiernan. The book alternates between 1943 and twenty years later when the people who had helped the escapees were interviewed by PBS.

Operation 'Rendimento' is planned but suffers a serious setback when it becomes clear the person leading it, Major Sam Reed, is in no position to carry out the dangerous mission. The story has a good sense of place and emergency but is also interspersed with transcripts of interviews for the other members of O’Flaherty’s ‘Choir,’ which is the cover for his activities. Everyday the people working with Hugh were risking their lives, just as he risked his own life everyday.Hauptmann already has utter contempt for the Irish priest after he was appointed to serve as an official Vatican visitor to the Italian concentration camp for British prisoners of war. The villain of the piece is Paul Hauptmann, Hitler's representative in Rome, and a man with a penchant for torture. This first book in the Rome Escape Line trilogy is inspired by the true story of Monsignor O’Flaherty, an Irish priest in the Vatican who helped smuggle Jews and escaped Allied prisoners out of Italy.

But Hauptmann’s net begins closing in and the need for a terrifyingly audacious mission grows critical.On a related note if you are interested in the true version of events Mr O'Connor provides further reading at the end of the book and you can visit the statue of Hugh O'Flaherty in Killarney National Park in Kerry (where they do now have crushed ice, tomato ketchup and easy access to garlic - read the book and you'll understand the reference).

It details raw courage and the selfish acts of all those who worked with Hugh to raise funds and find accommodation for the growing number of escapees. O’Connor’s own distinctive phrases are imbued with a gleeful irreverence: a cardinal is described as “a long drink of cross-eyed, buck-toothed misery if ever there was, he’d bore the snots off a wet horse”, wWhile a confident woman could “sell a double bed to the Reverend Mother”. Diplomats, refugees, and escaped Allied prisoners flee for protection into Vatican City, at one fifth of a square mile the world’s smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome. A few years prior to the events of 1943, as an official Vatican visitor, O’Flaherty had been assigned to visit an Italian concentration camp for British PoWs. A masterwork… so urgent, so incredibly alive… A searing and beautiful example of storytelling’s infinite importance.

Written in O´Connor´s usual lyrical,perfect prose,it´s moving,thought provoking and full of perfectly rounded characters,most of which you´d like as friends. Joseph O'Connor has created an unforgettable novel of love, faith and sacrifice, and what it means to be truly human in the most extreme circumstances. But, only at times, the different excerpts of the interviews that was written through out did confuse me a little bit of what the connection was. Beautifully crafted, his razor-sharp dialogue is to be savoured, and he employs dark humour to great effect.