Book excerpt: In the chaos following Italy's surrender in 1943, Germany decides to grab Italy's gold reserves, moving them from bank vaults in Rome to secret hiding locations. An old fortress near Fortezza, an alpine village on the border of Italy and Austria, is chosen as the ideal hiding place for the stores of gold. As a result, the village becomes the focus of the attention of the Reich's High Command, the Allied Forces, and Roberto, a fourteen year old boy working as a translator in a German work camp. In The Golden Fort readers of World War II-era fiction will find an absorbing novel that they will truly treasure.