Anthony Capella, The Wedding Officer

The Wedding Officer

Anthony Capella

Bantam, Jun 2007, $31.95

ISBN: 1585479896

In 1944, the British army occupies Naples. However, the brass back in London is not concerned with a counterattack by Mussolini's fascists or the German Nazis as the enemy is reeling from the Allied thrusts. Instead, the biggest concern is fraternization between the young British soldiers and the Italian beauties whose men are at war or dead. Assigned as the critical person in city-occupier relations is Captain James Gould who came to Naples to serve as THE WEDDING OFFICER, preventing relationships, especially marital ones, between the soldiers and the city belles.

James does a great job, although many of the young resent his eagerness to obey orders. However, he has a problem when he meets the officer chef widow Livia Pertini. Besides loving her cooking as he has not tasted anything close to the heavenly dishes she makes, he wants her with a passion that rivals her fervor for life. Struggling to control his desire for Livia as orders are orders, James falls in love. However, he realizes the hypocrisy as he is THE WEDDING OFFICER expected to prevent such goings on as he desires while also investigating marriages and claimed fatherhood between Italians and Brits.

This is a terrific, vivid, WWII tale starring a likable protagonist trying to accomplish his assigned mission while his heart tells him to disobey the order. The storyline provides a deep look at Naples as the British army that occupies the city, that enables the audience to infer what the war has done to the local populace and somewhat less the foreign army. Besides the irony of sending a single, twentyish male for this job, the delicious repasts and the impact of the eruption of Vesuvius, Anthony Capella provides a wonderful romance, but it is the historical tidbits interwoven into the plot that makes 1944 flow so alive.

Harriet Klausner