Street Boys

Street Boys by Lorenzo Carcaterra. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780743450270.

A gang of street urchins and an American soldier fight to liberate the city of Naples from the German army Naples, late September, 1943. The war in Europe is almost won. Italy is leaderless; Mussolini already arrested by anti-fascists. The city has been evacuated, but the German army is moving towards Naples to finish the job. Their chilling instructions are: if the city cant belong to Hitler, it will belong to no one. No one but the children. Orphaned or hidden by parents, abandoned or lost, some as young as ten years old, the children of Naples resist. Aided by a lone Allied soldier, cut off from his regiment, and armed with just a handful of guns, unexploded bombs and their own ingenuity, the street boys are determined to take on the advancing enemy and save the city - or die trying.