In the winter of 1944, the newly liberated city of Naples has become an ever more dangerous place. Ruled by an ineffective Military Government, organized crime gangs thrive while ordinary citizens struggle with guilt, privation and the corruption that infiltrates every aspect of society.

A small band of Field Security police is charged with establishing order. Among them is Thomas Greaves, a young Canadian lieutenant, with his own demons to exorcise. Greaves sees his time in Naples as an opportunity to make amends for a tragic blunder on the battlefield. His good intentions, however, which lead him into a friendship with the elderly curator of the National Museum and uncertain romance with the curator’s beautiful but embittered assistant, also land him in the murky world of gangsters and black marketeers where the lines between right and wrong, friend and foe are hopelessly blurred. Gritty, evocative and powerful, The Fallen is a thoughtful exploration of the consequences of war and its aftermath.

Stephen Finucan received his B.A. in literature from Trent University and his M.A. in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. He currently lives in Toronto, where he is a creative writing instructor with the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies. He is also a frequent contributor to the Toronto Star's book pages. In 2000, he was Write Magazine's New Writer of the Year. He won the Humber School for Writers Prize in 1997 and was shortlisted for the Upper Canada Brewing Company's Writer's Craft Award in 2000 and the Ian St. James Award for Short Fiction.

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"The Fallen feels broad and ambitious – but never overarchingly so, which is why it works so well. Finucan, who has previously published two story collections, has done his homework on a compelling period in history, but he wisely resists any temptation to flaunt it...This is a war novel in which warfare has effectively ended, yet there is no sense of real respite or freedom...Finucan does a subtle but formidable job of expressing the desperate confinement of it all." - The Toronto Star

"Finucan has recreated 1944 Naples with an historian's fidelity; but Finucan is foremost a gifted storyteller, and it is his depiction of a moral man's plight in an immoral world that makes this novel such a compelling and rewarding experience." - Ron Rash, New York Times bestselling author of Serena

Finucan evokes this anarchic moment [of those first weeks after the Allies reached the city], with tight, evocative writing that makes The Fallen a compelling and instructive read...Best of all, and worth the novel's price, is Finucan's depiction of the uneasiness that infects people when they don't know who is in control or what will happen next...The deeper message – that fighting begets only more fighting and more death – is powerful and inescapable. The Fallen is resonant and immediate. For all that it resides in history, it speaks a lesson that we do not seem able to remember " - The Globe And Mail

“Finucan captures with impressive clarity the guilt that comes with survival. Especially excellent is his ability to conjure the essence of characters in a few strokes...These subtle portraits establish personalities with an exactitude it takes other writers whole pages to express....Subtle, patient and stately in its revelations....The novel serves as a powerful reminder that the horrors of war do not end after the guns have been set down.” - Literary Review of Canada

"A wonderful tale, a story that could only be set in a city that is an open secret, and that city is Naples. Best of all, it is a novel that knows the difference between putting too much faith in people, or too little." - Peter Oliva, author of The City of Yes and Drowning in Darkness

“A complex tale of naivety, bravery and the attempt to wrest order from chaos…. Finucan has written a rare thing in Canadian literature: a novel in which the tension arises from a deep moral core. As the novel builds toward its climax, it takes on a near-Shakespearean quality: the reader wonders which characters will survive to the final page, and which will perish because of the poor choices they've made. Finucan's style is nearly flawless, and his research into 1944 Naples impeccable. There are no rough edges here: every meticulously gathered detail is integrated seamlessly into his excellent prose The Fallen will stay with the reader and reward repeated readings.” - Quill & Quire (Starred Review)