A small band of unlikely friends led by a courageous Irish priest is drawn into deadly danger as they seek to help those seeking refuge.

His books include Cowboys and Indians, Inishowen, Star of the Sea (American Library Association Award, Irish Post Award for Fiction, France's Prix Millepages, Italy's Premio Acerbi, Prix Madeleine Zepter for European novel of the year), Redemption Falls, Ghost Light (Dublin One City One Book Novel 2011) and Shadowplay (Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year, Costa Novel of the Year shortlist). The characterisation is superb, you get a real feel for the distinctiveness of each member of the Choir, and the exceptional character and personality of Hugh himself, a man who knows Rome like the back of his hand, for whom the city is his true home. Details of the mission were cobbled together, through the recollections of the choristers, into a cohesive tale of fear, intrigue, and bravery.

Against a sweeping plot fueled by loss, pleasure, greed, yearning, violence, and revenge, will these characters' connections become a path to escape, or a trigger of further destruction? And as it’s Reading Ireland month hosted by Cathy at 746books, it seemed as good as time as any to get stuck in. Their cover is a choir and the choristers are Delia Kieran, wife to the senior Irish diplomat at the Vatican, Marianna de Vries, a Dutch, freelance journalist, Sir D’Arcy Osborne, the British ambassador, Enzo Angelucci, former new stand owner, Sam Derry, an escaped British prisoner of war, John May is the resourceful man servant to the ambassador, Contessa Giovanna Landini, a widow, and the “conductor” is Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty. It’s a story of guts, of resilience, of thinking on your feet, although that of course does take care of planning and preparation. 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.

In 2009 he was the Harman Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Baruch College, the City University of New York. Deftly shifting through time and perspective in contemporary India, Age of Vice is an epic, action-packed story propelled by the seductive wealth, startling corruption, and bloodthirsty violence of the Wadia family-loved by some, loathed by others, feared by all. Photograph: Patrick Bolger View image in fullscreen ‘Compassion in spades’: Joseph O’Connor, photographed in Killiney, Dublin. The author slowly deals out information about our cast members, moving back and forth in time through flashbacks to events before Dec. While I feel two stars is appropriate from me, don't be turned away if you can follow the narration.

The patterning of narrative, commentary, narrative etc, worked well to begin with but became repetitive by the halfway point. Here Hugh brings together an unlikely band of friends to hide the vulnerable under the noses of the enemy.