Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel

Despite the 70,000+ reviews I still felt compelled to add to the raving reviews. A memorable saga, an amazing main character made all the more vivid as he is a real person who lived an extraordinary life. When ordinary people, especially at the age of 17, display real courage and are literally willing to put themselves at risk to save strangers makes me often wonder how many of us would be willing to do just that? This is a story of a remarkable young man named Pino who watches his world come crumbling down as the Nazi's invade Italy, including his precious Milan. Yet with determination and through adversity, Pino chooses to do whatever he can to stop the horror he witnesses on a daily basis. With great detail, the author realistically describes the beauty of Milan and the surrounding mountains as well as the cruelty the Germans inflicted on its inhabitants. Pino's inner conflicts with the brilliant German commander he was assigned to were understandable as we're all human. Pino's relationships were so wonderfully written, especially the one between he and his one true love. This was a story I couldn't wait to read and find out what was to happen next. Please read this book, Pino and his story will stay with you for a very long time.

We listened to this incredible story which is based on truth in audiobook form. It is the best book I have ever listened to, and have listened to it many times. They story takes place in Italy during WW2, and once you start, you will learn so much and love the characters. This is a must read, I have shared with so many!

The Preface is enough to still your speeding modern mind to get how this author needs to fill you in on the circumstances about his life when the tattered outline of this odyssey was shown to him & how researching this true-to-life memoir swallowed him whole & saved his own life.In 1944 the hero of this tale was on the brink of manhood, ready to leave school & get on w/his life when the German army finally invaded his home town & their lives, their law & order, their ruler Il Duce & everyone's dreams & hopes came to a standstill.Caught between the proverbial rock & hard place, ordinary working Milanese & their children were waiting the stalled Allied advance north from Sicily as told over forbidden wirelesses via the BBC. They were also learning how to survive when Nazis & their attending Wermacht Army rolled in & co-opted all living places, food & supplies. Along with all the dramas in hotels & apartments with mistresses & maids, parents & siblings there were the ever-present spies & collaborators.This is a novel recounting the truly remembered adventures & feelings of teenager Pino Lella as told by the 90+ year-old survivor of those last 2 crazy years of The War when he was young, healthy, a brilliant skier & mountain climber who then had to enlist only to get wounded on his first foray & while on medical leave Fate chose him to become a German general's driver in a world gone mad as the Allies pounded their way north forcing the Germans into a destructive retreat.This was an all-round rousing read: held my breath a lot; chuckled some & wept up a storm. I have a feeling this will be Mark Sullivan's best-remembered tale cuz he brings Pino Lella to life in a poetic, heroic fashion; a lad in love w/music, cars & girls who gets to hear the most sorrowful of dirges & the most uplifting of arias; he falls in love w/a fleeting stranger & then starts mid-winter mountain climbing & skiing to take city Jews to freedom, & the music follows him there too. He learns to drive his car mechanic friend's loaner Italian autos; his heart breaks as he watches his family & friends struggle & his city crumble & his life tumble into a pit of despair.The real adventure is that in his travels with his general Fate is giving him all the information he needs to pass on via his uncle to Partisans up in the mountains who harass & confound the invaders at the end of their tether, resources & reign.On these travels all over northern Italy Pino bears witness to hidden tunnels filled with a host of grey ghost slaves preparing underground factories, munitions dumps & wonders for which he has no names, all of which he will pass on once back in Milan. All one breathless blink from discovery.It was hard enough being in the company of a German general who praised his work, his mastery of the automobile, who trusted his translations of Italian into French it was, however, far worse watching his compatriots scrabble to survive, always endangered & his lifetime friends shunning him as a coward for not picking up a weapon.This young man must have burned out his adrenal glands well B4 he was 19 while guiding Italian Jews over the Alps to freedom & then still a year-and-a-half B4 VE Day go on, never sleeping regularly, the emotional roller-coaster never stopping: finding courage, seduced by excitement, warned by memories of horrific slaughters... & then he meets the maid to his general's mistress & that first love becomes his sacred oasis of music & joy & sensuality as the pace of his general's inspections as the Allies & Germans battle over his homeland demolishing untold castles on hills, ancient cities & monasteries filled with great art.In that final Spring of The War a fever overtakes everyone: the sights, sounds, smells, tastes of war fill Pino up as his general orders repeated drives to one particular place on the border along the Brenner Pass into Austria & Pino suspects his general is shipping gold bars out for his escape.The End of this fine saga reaches its climax amid mis-information & bad timing. All falls B4 Pino's eyes & his heart & spirit are broken when he learns he has been played by both sides: his general & his country.I'm so glad Sullivan gave us an update as to where everyone we met were by the turn of this century cuz it leaves the reader knowing an eager beaver of a spirit had not worked in vain, had grown immeasurably & gone on to live as ordinary life as anyone who lived thru such times could.A profoundly validating account of one teenager's Coming of Age in a Time of War.I was thrilled, entranced, filled with amore & doused with sorrow & all through I could hear the music to Pino Lello's life. This one's a keeper, very well done!

This reader consumes mostly historical non fiction with occasional fiction and rarely historical fiction.This was a book I could not put down. While fictional the story could only be based on reality. The author did extensive research to uncovering a hidden treasure lost in time.

This is such a well written story.It is funny, heartbreaking, educational, and interesting. One of the best books I have read in a long time. I selected it for a 2023 book challenge I am doing, it far surpassed my expectations.

I loved this true tale from WWII…all the feels wrapped up in the danger, heroism, tragedy, intrigue, and romance of such a pivotal time in the world’s history. Highly recommend!

I don’t normally enjoy books about world wars. But, this was so well written and was a real page turner for me. I am continually amazed at the true stories of unsung heroes like Pino Lella whose bravery cannot be measured. I loved the epilogue too because I had many questions about what life was like for the characters after the war. This book was 5 stars for me!

This book capture me from the beginning. Pino wss so real to me that I felt I suffered when he did and cried when he did. What an incredible man and to think he was only 27 when he became a man. I so wish Anna had lived to velvet life with him.I read this book in two days and could hardly put it down. Mark Sullivan is an incredible writer and I hope to meet hum one day as I also live in Montana

If this book had been pure fiction and not based, as it is, on the actual experiences of one young man, I would have regarded it as too far-fetched. How could one teenage boy, over a period of less than two years, experience so much?I hadn't, until I read this book, taken too much interest in the Italian experience of World War II. To my shame, I had assumed that they had pretty much as a nation fallen in with the Nazis. How wrong that thinking is. I read Scarlet Sky whilst on a break in Krakow, Poland - and I learned simultaneously about these countries' experiences under Hitler's control. I learned from both that measured "compliance" can be far more effective than blind and instinctive resistance.The desperate problem - as we learn in this book - comes at the end of the conflict when euphoria coupled with intense anger and the desire to punish collaborators spills out during the period of anarchy before order is restored. Nobody knows who has actually worked for the enemy and who has risked their lives to defeat the enemy from within. The injustice of the summary executions - Italian on Italian - is for me the most distressing aspect of this book. It is shocking to see how normal people can change to wild blood-thirsty avengers, looking for the blood of anyone who just might have collaborated - and, of course, many of those murdered suspects were innocent.This story excellently describes the transition of a 17 year-old boy living with his well-off family in Milan from innocent teenager to alpha male in a matter of months. From using his mountaineering skills to help Jews to escape from Italy to finding himself in the presence of Mussolini himself, Pino Lella becomes a true hero - albeit a flawed hero tormented by guilt and traumatised by his experiences.So well-written, so moving, so shocking, so educating, so thought-provoking. I am so pleased I learned of this man's life. He richly deserves to have his experiences recorded for posterity.

This novel is based on the true story of Pino Lella, an Italian who, as a teenager towards the end of WW2, was drawn into first, helping Jews escape over the Italian Alps to Switzerland, and then, living a double life as driver to a German general in charge of construction and as a spy for the Italian partisans and, through them, the Allies.The story itself is one of huge courage against the background of horrific actions by the German forces that had taken over Italy and also by the partisans resisting them. This should have been a brilliant book. Unfortunately, the way it is told lets the story down. There are some longueurs, where the author dwells at too much length on fairly mundane domestic and other happenings. The portrayal of Pino’s thoughts and feelings is simplistic, and in places repetitive. The style smacks of the jejune, like something out of The Boys’ Own Paper.This is a great pity. Despite the weaknesses of the telling, though, the book is worth reading: Pino was someone whose heroism was never recognised - and for decades he tried to put all these events behind him; and many of us know too little about what life was like in Northern Italy as WW2 drew towards a close.

If nothing else, I give full marks to the marketing folk who have successfully convinced so many people to go out and buy this novel, and in turn make it an Amazon bestseller. Does it deserve those mega sales? Does it warrant all the praise it's received? - I think not, by a long chalk. The reason I invested in a copy of this book was because it was placed up there on a pedestal, besides the likes of one of my favourite novel's 'All The Light We Cannot See' by Anthony Doerr. Beneath a Scarlet Sky pales into insignificance compared with the magical prose that consistently weaves it's way through Mr Doerr's mesmerising work of fiction.It's also worth noting that the only endorsement on the cover of this book comes from James Patterson, who just happens to be one of Mark Sullivan's best buddies, having co-written five novels together.One of the issues I had with this book is the way it's been publicised as the true story of a forgotten Italian hero. This is clearly a novel as printed on the front cover, it doesn't claim to be a biography. The inner cover even states: ‘Though based on a true story and real characters, this is a work of fiction and of the author's imagination.’ That was an hurdle for me, because I just couldn't decide which parts were true, which parts were half-true, and which parts were totally fabricated to embellish the story - so, in turn, I couldn't make up my mind whether this young man was really the incredible, larger-than-life hero he was made out to be by the author.There's no doubt that the central character in this tale, Pino Lella actually existed, and evidence indeed suggests that he did play a part in helping Jews to escape from Italy, by leading them on a treacherous journey over the Alps to the safety of Switzerland. And, of course, he should be honoured and admired for voluntarily carrying out such a brave feat. However, I found it difficult to believe in his other ventures, and the heroic acts that followed. We are led to believe that at the age of 18 his mother and father convince him to enlist in the local OT section of the German army - so that he can stay in Italy, and not be later conscripted and sent to the Russian front. When in uniform, he wears a Swastika armband. In no time at all he becomes the personal driver to General Hans Leyers, who was the most senior and most powerful Nazi in Italy during the last two years of WW2. You would think that by holding such power, this general would have on his staff an interpreter, a German officer who could speak fluent Italian. But no, he asks Pino to interpret for him, even though Pino doesn't know much German. Leyers has to therefore speak to Pino in a language they both understand - French! By the way, Pino is based in his own town, but it doesn't seem to bother the General that Private first class Lella will have at least some allegiance to his own local family and friends. Pino accompanies the general to meetings with influential Italian manufacturing leaders, and top Nazi officials - so he gets to eavesdrop on talks about construction sites for German munitions factories etc. Hence his opportunity for becoming a spy. Pino even gets to meet Mussolini on at least a couple of occasions. It also appears that Pino was conveniently present to witness every major event, tragedy or horror that was inflicted on the people of Milan during his time as a German soldier.What I mustn't forget to mention, is the standard of the writing - I thought it was mediocre at best. For me, many of the sections fell flat, other areas of the narrative were drawn out. In addition, it lacked the tension I was expecting from a story concerning an important period in history which had devastating effects on Italy and it's people. In the book's favour, I did learn something about Italy's participation in WW2, and gleaned facts that were previously unknown to me. I was also fascinated by the 'Aftermath' which appears after the story has come to an end. This section essentially sums up what happened to some of the key characters after the war, and certainly convinced me that as he got older, Pino Lella did indeed become a charismatic figure.I realise I'm in a small minority when it comes to how I've assessed this novel. All I can add is that I can only give my truthful appraisal of a book, and I always endeavour to be honest during that process.

I could not put this down it was sleep that stole me away from these words that I will treasure in my heart for as long as I live. Pappillion was always my one best read and now I have two. I thank you Mark Sullivan for taking the time and effort to record this story, which will forever reside in my heart. I feel truly blessed to of shared this I cannot put into words how much this has touched me. With true love in my heart for all that I have read thank you xxxI loved this i stayed awake until the wee hours of the morning not able to put it down it was sleep that took me away from the most seductive account of events that I have read. Every bit as good as pappillion which was my favorite book of all time and now I have two. I will never forget all the hard work you went into writing this and will be forever a better person for reading this. I feel truly blessed to of shared this story with loved in my heart and a teari thank you Mark Sullivan

This is a novel with some basis in fact - the worst of both worlds. The author admits to having "fleshed out" some of the dialogue. But about 70% of the book is dialogue. based on the recollections of one man sixty years later. Many real people feature but all were long dead before the author began work so nothing is corroborated. The mawkish love interest is simply embarrassing with no evidence that the girl actually existed.If you can believe in an 18 year-old fluent in French and English as well as Italian, an expert climber, a skilled mechanic high speed driver and, oh yes, a sp, then this is fo you. Otherwise, stay clear.