Some authors write crime stories, some suspense, some write war stories, and some simply write good books. Roland Merullo falls into that last category. He simply presents books worth reading.
I first discovered Merullo in his novel Breakfast with Buddha,/i>, a great story that encased explanations of basic Buddhist spiritual beliefs into an intriguing storyline. From there, I read his other books relating to other spiritual and religious beliefs, including Christianity. All were excellent.
I soon discovered that Merullo had set a suspense story in Cuba under the reign of Fidel Castro. Just like the spiritual novels, it put the repressive methods of Castro into the perspective of a fictional storyline. It was a formula that worked. The suspenseful storyline made great and engaging reading while making the realities of life in Cuba vivid to readers.
From These Broken Street tells the story of the brutal Nazi occupation of Naples, Italy in WW II. The brutalities of the Nazis have been well understood all along since the war and are the frequent basis of novels, but From These Broken Streets makes the impact of occupation armies on a conquered population clear, painful, and poignant. People learn to survive rather than to live, fear pervades every phase of life, the very best and the very worst in humanity manifest themselves dramatically during these times of adversity. Yet, in spite of all that, the human spirit endures and the reign of tyrants fails. People may have been conquered, but they have not been and cannot be defeated.
The novel’s brutal Nazi Colonel Walter Scholl takes command of the Nazi forces occupying Naples. He is to gather all the Jews left in the city and have them shipped off to the death camps. His assignment is also to bring the city into defeat by ending the pockets of resistance and other defiances of its conquerors. Since he believes that the city is in chaos and needs to be tamed, he uses the only approach to conquest he understands: ruthless disregard for humanity. He acts through the kinds of brutality and bloodshed at which he is highly accomplished, the frequent tool of despots, and the least effective means of gaining a victory.
As he moves to tighten his hold on the city, his methods inspire the citizens to finally reach the point of separation at which they will aggressively fight back. Thus, the incompetent Colonel must use his military forces against the civilian population rather than marshaling them against the impending advance of the American army. Military fools who open two-front wars always pay the ultimate price, a lesson Scholl was soon to learn.
Merullo’s novel shows how street urchins, wealthy merchants, nuns, prostitutes, and people from every other walk of life work toward the expulsion of the Germans. Children become killers, women become spies, adversaries of a lifetime become allies against the new, interloping tyrants. The book traces in each of the characters the slow development that makes each finally being willing to take any risk whatsoever to throw off the chains of the brutal Nazis.
This book is revetting, tense, suspenseful, realistic. It still captures all of the grisly aspects of an occupied city, yet it also pays tribute to the human spirit and to the goodness that lies in all of us when faced with the challenges of a crisis.
As always, Roland Merullo tells a great story in order to demonstrate an even greater human truth.
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Roland Merullo's From These Broken Streets offers a novelization of an interesting episode during WWII. After the execution of Mussolini, the figurehead king from those years negotiated the surrender of Italy to the allies. The Germans occupied much of Italy at the time, so this move to the other side wasn't simple. Germany was determined to hold Italy and increased the pace of its extradition of Jews to death camps and of healthy men to labor camps—and also planned to destroy cities as it was forced to leave them. From These Broken Streets is set in Naples, one of those occupied cities, and recounts Italian resistance to the Germans, which came together piecemeal through the efforts of individuals with some coordination from a local mafia boss.

The novel starts a bit slowly, but the characters are well drawn, so as one gets to know them the narrative becomes increasingly engaging. I move steadily through the first two-thirds of From These Broken Streets, then stayed up late to finish the last third in a single sitting. The central characters have complicated relationships with one another, and almost all wrestle constantly with self-doubt, so watching them find the courage to act as they did was a very satisfying experience. The fact that the author leaves loose ends at the novel's close is one of the book's strengths. Readers are left having to ponder the probable end of story elements that remain unresolved—and with the war not yet over and years of recovery to follow, the "story" most certainly wasn't finished after the German exit from Naples.

Of course, this is fiction, not history, so I appreciated Merullo's provision a thoughtful, thorough afterward in which he describes his research into Neapolitan resistance and explains the ways he's compressed the timeline to present events in fiction. This is a title that will appeal to a wide range of readers—WWII enthusiasts, readers of character-driven novels, readers of action novels, and readers of historical fiction. If you know anyone who falls into one of these categories, this book would make a wonderful birthday or holiday gift.

I received an electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley for review purposes. The opinions are my own. ( )

Set in World War II Naples, an archivist (Giuseppe) comes up with a plan to aid the Allies. He and Lucia, a secretary, go underground with the aid of of her father, risking much, to help overthrown Fascist and Nazi regimes. Unfortunately the novel started far too slowly and failed to draw me until the last 50 to 75 pages. I'd hoped for a more engaging read set in a the Italian theater of the war about which I knew little. ( )