The Glass Mountain

<p><b>The author of <i>The Ruin of All Witches</i> returns with a gripping, vividly told journey of rediscovery, uncovering his uncle¿s past as a soldier, prisoner, fugitive and partisan in World War Two Italy </b></p><p><br>Malcolm Gaskill knew two things about his great-uncle Ralph¿s wartime adventures: he¿d been a prisoner in Italy, and he¿d cut his way out of a train with a knife and fork. Apart from that, he¿d faded into family folklore, lost to view. Until, one hot afternoon in an English country garden, a chance conversation set Gaskill on his uncle¿s trail¿<br><br>What Ralph really did in the war was, he discovers, even more extraordinary than the exaggerations of family myth. From last-ditch fighting in the Libyan desert and incarceration in a Puglian prisoner-of-war camp, to desperate, dramatic escapes and the assuming of an entirely new identity among the peasants and partisans of the Italian alps, Gaskill traces a life transformed by conflict, while lifting the curtain on a