An enthralling dual-timeline WWII family mystery, based on the heartbreaking true story of the massacre in a small town in Italy in July of 1945, from award-winning, bestselling novelist Sandro Martini. “A gripping saga that roots excruciating betrayals in a nation’s tragic history.” – Kirkus Reviews In the winter of 1942, an Italian army of young men vanishes in the icefields of the Eastern Front. In the summer of 1945, a massacre in Schio, northeastern Italy, where families grieve the dead, makes international headlines. In present-day Veneto, an ordinary man is about to stumble onto a horrifying secret. Alex Lago is a jaded journalist whose career is fading as fast as his marriage. When he discovers an aged World War II photo in his dying father’s home, and innocently posts it to a Facebook group, he gets an urgent message: Take it down. NOW. Alex finds himself digging into a past that needs to stay hidden. What he's about to uncover is a secret that can topple a political dynasty buried under seventy years of rubble. Suddenly entangled in a deadly legacy, he encounters the one person who can offer him redemption, for an unimaginable price. Told from three alternating points of view, Martini’s World War II tale of intrigue, war, and heartbreak pulls the Iron Curtain back to reveal a country nursing its wounds after horrific defeat, an army of boys forever frozen at the gates of Stalingrad, British spies scheming to reshape Italy’s future, and the stinging unsolved murder of a partisan hero. Ciao, Amore, Ciao is a gripping story of the most heroic, untold battle of the Second World War, and a brilliantly woven novel that brings the deceits of the past and the reckoning of the present together. “Balances action, suspense, and emotional depth to deliver a truly immersive, thought-provoking read with an unflinching look at the sins of the past and the lengths to which the powerful will go to keep them buried.” – Sublime Book Review "Martini's storytelling is vivid and gripping, and his writing reads like lean, muscular poetry" —Kirkus Reviews "Vivid and chilling, this is a riveting tale of the horrors of war" —Sublime Reviews "Martini's taut prose provides a haunting glimpse into the psychological scars of conflict" —Prairie Reviews "The result is profoundly moving and thought-provoking." —IndieReader " And the prose is beautiful. Sharp and vivid, like a Polaroid that won't stop developing. There were passages where I had to stop and breathe, not because they were hard to understand, but because they were so true." —Literary Titan "Italy's buried wartime secrets lead to shocking violence in this labyrinthine historical mystery"— Kirkus Reviews   "Vivid and chilling, this is a riveting tale of the horrors of war and a dangerous truth waiting to be unearthed."— Sublime   "Sprawling, stirring, and beautifully written..."— Prairie Review   Beyond the leaded, thick-paned windows, the afternoon is underwater, heavy clouds staining the sapphire sky. Just gone four. I watch the night fold into the room. There aren't many photos of my uncle, not since my grandmother had consigned them all to fire one afternoon in '47, all his letters from the Eastern Front, all his photos, everything. My dad had once told me why, but now that I think of it, I really can't remember when he'd told me—it just seems to be something I know, this scene from my grandmother's life, of the day she'd come back home from her visit to the local council and set about burning every memento of her eldest son. "What was your son doing in Russia, anyway? Did he think the Russians would welcome him with vodka and sausages?" the man from the council had replied that afternoon when she'd gone to ask, yet again, for news on her missing boy. "You're pretty enough, go make another fascist." She'd never spoken of him again after that day, the nineteen-year-old boy who'd been sent to die in the Caucuses, that was the idea, to Baku to secure the oilfields, marching in the heat of a Ukrainian summer in fields of sunflowers before orders were reversed and the Italian 8th Army and the Alpine Divisions had been rerouted to the Don River. My uncle had died forever the day his mother had abandoned the relics of his memory. From antiquity, from Ptolemy all the way until the 18th Century, the Don had been the border between Europe and Asia, and it'd become the western flank of the German VI Army, stalled at the gates of Stalingrad in '42. ARMIR— Armata Italiana in Russia —had marched one thousand kilometres to its banks to wait for the bone-crushing winter and the Russians to kill them. I can't help wondering why my dad had left it there, this photo, why in the pouch that contained his will. His will—what a strange word—his will after death. But I can't ask him—I can't ask him this. Not now. I lift my phone and dial. "Yes?" says my wife's voice, exasperated. "Hi." Silence. My wife doesn't do conversation. You wouldn't be able to drown a fly in