Prince of the Clouds Riotta, Gianni and Sartarelli, Stephen

A mother's death, a mysterious photograph, and a stranger's last words send a young man chasing ghosts across wartime Italy. Gianni Riotta's novel moves between 1943 Sicily — American planes overhead, Mussolini's regime crumbling — and the present day, where Carlo pieces together his family's buried secrets. There's a pilot, a love affair that crossed enemy lines, and a truth that's been kept hidden for fifty years. Riotta writes with the precision of someone who knows war leaves questions that outlive the people who could answer them. The translation by Stephen Sartarelli keeps the prose lean and vivid. For readers who like their historical fiction grounded in real geography and real consequences, who want stories about what happens after the bombs stop falling and the living have to make sense of what remains.