Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan

I’m just going to start this post by saying this book could easily be my top read of 2022. I’m predicting that now. We’ve only just started March and that is how much I loved this book. It’s a book that I believe everyone should read at some point in their life. An absolutely incredible true story of a forgotten hero. It’s so beautifully written that it will often have tears brought to your eyes. There’s so much I want to say about this book but I don’t really know how to put it into this post. All I can say is please, please read this book, and I hope you are as taken by Pino’s strength as I was.

Pino Lella is just your average Italian teenager. He loves music, food, and girls but hates the war that is going on and the Nazis that have started taking over his town. When the war ends up destroying his home in Milan, he decides to join an underground railroad helping lead Jews through the Alps. His parents force him to enlist as German soldier in a way to protect himself and to be out of combat. What they did not plan for is that after Pino suffers a horrible injury, he is moved from his current position to the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand man in Italy. He is in the perfect position to report information back to the Allies. But while working as the driver, Pino is subjected to some of the many horrors brought on by the war. The book only takes place in 1-2 years but it feels like a lifetime with the amount that occurs to Pino and the citizens of Italy. Based on the true story of a young man’s resilience and an often forgotten hero.

This book will have you on a rollercoaster of emotions from gasping in shock, yelling in outrage, rejoicing, and crying. I read this mostly while with my friend Madeleine while on the beach and she kept having to look over at me from me reacting out loud from the things I was reading. Which I feel like is the sign of a great book if it can get you to react that strongly for the good or the bad. To Mark, thank you for writing this powerful story and to Pino, thank you for everything you did in those few years that helped saved so many lives and for never getting the recognition he deserved. Grazie The Observer.

Love conquers all things.

Virgil

Until Next Time, The Library Abroad