Although influenced by Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Rinaldi's World War II novel stands on its own unique merits. Fantastical with a touch of dark humor, it's both a moving love story and a gripping portrait of a tiny island under siege. (LJ 5/1/99) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In fluid prose and with subtle psychological insight, Rinaldi (Bridge Fall Down) writes of wartime love as a kind of complex anesthetic, or as a soul-saving form of amnesia during violent times. During the early years of WWII, U.S. Army Corporal Rocco Raven is sent to the small Mediterranean island of Malta on a vague intelligence mission concerning wire taps. Because of its key geographic position between Sicily and Africa, Malta has been subjected to daily Italian and German bombardments, and it seems that the only person keeping his head clear of falling rubble is Roccos commanding officer, shifty Jack Fingerly, who dresses inappropriately in a Florida sports shirt and disappears when the going gets bad. Walking along pitted streets lined by gutted buildings, Rocco meets and immediately falls in love with Melita Azzard, a beautiful, green-eyed Maltese woman who drives a pink Studebaker hearse, delivering her cousin Zammits handmade jukeboxes to the many bars that cater to English and American troops. Rocco learns Maltese history from Nardu Camilleri, whose national pride drives him to vainly shoot at enemy planes with his outdated rifle. As the conflict accelerates, Rocco and Melita occasionally manage to escape, driving through Maltas rocky terrain and swimming naked in the ocean, and Rocco hopes for a future that sanctifies their love. Readers may find echoes of Louis De Bernieress Correllis Mandolin here, in the juxtaposition of local history, island romance and senseless violence, but Rinaldis voice is distinct in its honest portrayal of a peoplelong deprived of food, information and entertainmentstruggling to reconnect to the world. While sometimes the plot momentum slows with long-winded dialogue, this is a compelling tale of lovers straining to hear the music through the din of a war-ravaged planet. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Rinaldi's second novel, a wartime love story set in Malta during the German-Italian siege of 1942, follows the serendipitous military life of Rocco Raven, an army radioman from Brooklyn, sent to Malta by mistake to work for the deep-secret branch of army intelligence. There he is under the command of the shady and mysterious Fingerly, whose underground connections run from Gibraltar to Cairo and who eventually has Rocco unknowingly spy on the British. The real tale is Rocco's relationships with the islanders, especially Melita, with whom he falls in love. Throughout the island, Melita repairs jukeboxes, made by her older cousin Zammit, who uses whatever material he can scavenge from the bombing raids. With the ever-increasing shortages and imminent death from the Italian and German bombers, the novel evokes a sense of fatalism without falling back on the usual war-story triteness. And one is never so comfortable with Rocco and Melita's love affair as to decide beforehand that it is either doomed or triumphant because the novel's reality, the war, transcends those notions. --Frank Caso