“Why did pain exist? Why did evil exist? Why had God allowed men like Hitler and Mussolini to come to power?”
Beginning with the reprisal killings at Piazzale Loreto, the story goes through Italy’s political and militaristic transitions during Mussolini’s dethronement by the king starting with his banishment/hiding at La Maddalena. It has graphic moments and incorporates a fair amount of history. It recounts the Nazi’s invasion of Italy (though brief) and describes the implementation of antisemitic laws and practices in Italy during WW2. The story runs through each character’s conflict (mostly at night as the title implies) and continues as does Mussolini staying hidden. Each character is connected in some way and wants to learn Mussolini’s whereabouts to either help kill him, help reinstate him, or help imprison him. In this fictional tale, Mussolini’s death is not featured since the story ends beforehand. Because of this, I cannot say that I completely liked the fictional ending. It seemed to stop suddenly and without closure for the reader. The epilogue does account for his death, though the epilogue is a statement of facts.
“Now the king has removed il Duce from power and hidden him away, and everybody is desperately trying to find him– the Allies to take him prisoner, Hitler to rescue him, our comrades to kill him.”
There are a lot of characters in motion, and they skip around quite a bit. The chapters alternate without pattern, and a new character is introduced all the way until chapter 12. This took some adjusting as a reader.
For example- chapter 1 Sarah, chapter 2 Mussolini, chapter 3 Frederico, chapter 4 Luca, chapter 5 Maria, chapter 6 Don Claudio, chapter 7 back to Mussolini, chapter 8 Silvio Merino, chapter 9 back to Luca, chapter 10, back to Sarah, and chapter 12 Otto.
There are not any indicators under or above the chapters such as the location, date, or character POV, so you have to figure it out as you go. Because of this, I do not recommend reading this book over a long period of time or it could be confusing to remember all of the various characters.
The characters POV include members of the Italian resistance, Benito Mussolini, priests, Nazi’s, Jews in hiding, Italians hiding Jews, counterfeit artists.
My favorite chapters were told from Mussolini’s POV and the Don Claudio (the priest) POV.
It is a good entertaining story. The writing is simple and easy to understand. There are traitors and secrets. I still really liked it even though I didn’t completely like the end and though it was hard to get emotionally attached to the characters though since there were so many. There is mild vulgar language and scenes that imply sexual acts.
