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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.
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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.
Summary
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 .
