Miracle at St. Anna

Miracle at St. Anna by James McBride, 271 pages.
I read McBride's first novel when it first came out, I remember really liking it. On the second reading, that holds true, I really liked it, but having recently read the author's prize-winning account of John Brown, The Good Lord Bird, which was one of the best books I have read in several years, this debut did suffer a little by comparison. This was still an exciting account of the war in Italy. The main focus comes when four African-American soldiers become separated from their unit during a fierce battle. They find a traumatized orphan, the head of a statue, and, eventually, a group of partisans with secrets of their own. By the time you got to the end of the book, I had long forgotten the twists and turns set up in the very beginning, but it was still a satisfying, though sad, conclusion.
The really great thing about listening to the book was hearing the narration by the awesome Wendell Pierce. He does a great job setting the tone of the book; it is a great read.