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North Americans have been fortunate in mostly avoiding having sustained wars fought on our home ground. There have been isolated events, to be sure, but we have not endured attacks involving large numbers of foreign troops and battlegrounds in our own back yards. As a result, our perceptions of war tend to focus on two fronts: the front lines ("Over There"), and the home front - the wartime experiences of family members left behind, or working in military industries.
There is a third front, however, that Europeans - and others - would immediately recognise: the experience of those in occupied territories, coping with the challenges of living under martial law, and subject to the actions - and sometimes the whims - of their occupiers. In THE LIGHT IN THE RUINS, Chris Bohjalian explores this nuanced world, in which civilians find themselves trying to come to terms with events they cannot control, but where their actions can literally make a difference between life and death. It is a world of constantly shifting ground and subtle shades of grey, giving rise to a question most of us will fortunately never have to face: what should I do now, at this moment, in this situation, in order to best protect the ones I love?
Italy, 1943: the hills nearby Siena shelter the aristocratic Rosati family on their estate, known as the Villa Chimera. But while some members remain at home, others have been caught up in the European conflict: Marco, an engineer working in Sicily, is preparing the beaches against an expected Allied invasion, while Vittore, an archeologist, is safe in Florence, hoping to secure the treasures of the Uffizi against destruction. Of the grown children of the Marchese, only Cristina, the youngest of the three, remains at the villa to help her sister-in-law tend her and Marco's children. But as the war moves toward its climax Italy finds itself in a state of chaos, the population splintered between supporters of the Fascist government, partisan rebels, those who seek a way to accommodate the demands of their German and Italian masters, and mere opportunists, whose only shared objective is an eye on the main chance.
Twelve years later a killer will stalk the Rosati family, avenging a crime real or imagined, committed during the war, and centring on events that took place at the Villa Chimera. Serafina Bettini, a detective with a homicide unit of the Italian Police, will struggle to understand the events that have led to a series of brutal slayings, and to prevent the killer from striking again; and in the process she will be forced to relive her own past during those turbulent times.
THE LIGHT IN THE RUINS is an atmospheric historical thriller that skilfully explores the conflicting tensions of an occupied people, and uses converging plot lines to bring the action to a compelling climax. In a finely crafted tale the author adroitly mines the turmoil of war in all of its day-to-day unpredictability both to entertain and to ask the reader, what would you have done?
§ Since 2005 Jim Napier's reviews and interviews have appeared in several Canadian newspapers and on websites worldwide. He can be reached at jnapier@deadlydiversions.com
Reviewed by Jim Napier, October 2013
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