The Garden of Angels

A  TIMES BEST THRILLER OF THE YEAR 2022

When a Jewish classmate is attacked by bullies, fifteen-year-old Nico just watches - earning him a week's suspension and a typed, yellowing manuscript from his frail Nonno Paolo. A history lesson, his grandfather says, and a secret he must keep from his father.

Nico is transported back to the Venice of 1943, an occupied city seething under the Nazis, and to the defining moment of his grandfather's life: when Paolo's support for a murdered Jewish woman brings him into the sights of the city's underground resistance. Hooked and unsettled, Nico can't stop reading - but he soon wonders if he ever knew his beloved grandfather at all.

Praise for The Garden of Angels...

"Sensitively written, with a tremendous late twist, The Garden of Angels is above all a superlative re-creation of time and aqueous place" ― The Times

"The plot is strong, tense and intricate with an unexpected twist in the tail, and the sense of place is haunting and powerful, but the abiding strength is in the characterisation . . . You may feel that we are sated with novels about occupied Europe in WW2, but don't miss this one" ― Historical Novel Society

"I can thoroughly recommend this book . . . it has a strong message about fascism and about what happens to a country when people not only support and encourage it but also stand by and do nothing; are complicit in their silence. Masterful impassioned writing" – Richard Armitage

Watch a video shot in Venice about the origins of this story.