Saints and Villains — Denise Giardina

An astonishing historical novel in the tradition of Schindler's List--evoking powerfully the danger and heroism of the Nazi resistance.

What is the price of acting morally in a time of great evil, when sin and necessity seem twinned? Saints and Villains is a strikingly resonant novel that dramatizes this painful dilemma through the fictional re-creation of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This emblematic figure risked his life--and finally lost it--through his participation in the failed plot to assassinate Hitler and topple the Nazi regime. In a gripping and sweeping narrative that moves from Berlin to London to New York City, encompassing shattering historical events, clandestine meetings, perilous missions abroad, and eventual imprisonments and death, Denise Giardina brings to life an instance of shining courage in the charnel house that was Europe in the Second World War. A novel that is bold in conception and utterly convincing in its powers of fictional re-creation--a literary event.