7/50 --- Miracle at St. Anna by James McBride

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Miracle at St. Anna
by James McBride
7/50

McBride takes two true stories: one  of the Buffalo soldiers in WWII, (members of the 92nd Infantry division, black soldiers allowed to fight in combat) and another of the massacre of over 500 civilian at St. Anna di Stazzema by the SS in 1944 (a crime not punished until 2004)  and weaves a  moving and involving  fictional story of death and miracles.  (I had to mention death, there's a lot of it.)  A squad of black soldiers and a traumatized small Italian refugee boy find themselves separated from the rest of the American Army and trapped in a small village.  They are ordered to capture a German soldier for questioning and wait with him to be relieved.  They mistrust the Southern white officers who send them their orders and the Itallian villagers with whom they must wait.  This is a well told story that pulls the reader along as he, knowing more than the poor soldiers in the book, tries to figure out what has happened, what will happen, who's the villain and where the danger lies.  The characters are multi-dimentional and surprising, the picture of the war in Italy, fascinating.  I finished the book intent on finding out more about the Italian experience in WWII. 

This was another fine read by James McBride.