The Place of Small Stones

ITALY, 1943: The Eighth Army pursues Hitler's retreating forces up the boot of Italy, with Montgomery secretly hoping to beat Clark's Fifth Army to Rome. Crucial to his plan is the Adriatic port of Ortona. And the unit he has picked to take this critical landmark is the First Canadian Division. In the ranks of Canada's "Red Patch Devils" is John Strachan, ne'er do well son of a Great War hero, put on the front lines as an alternative to disgrace at home; a thoroughly unlikely warrior. Soon, he and his comrades will have to rise to the occasion all the same; for the German paratroopers defending Ortona are fashioning a defensive citadel that will soon be known to the world as "Little Stalingrad," a place where the work of centuries becomes a place of small stones, and only the quick and the ruthless survive.