David Hewson

When a famed director is set to release his last film, based on Dante’s Inferno, the premiere is disrupted by the online murder of its star and the theft of an ancient death mask, that of Dante himself. The Carabinieri are in charge of the murder investigation, but Falcone and his team are given the task of guarding the remaining artifacts at the new premiere site, San Francisco. Once there, Nic becomes embroiled in the world of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, a film that has more ties to Inferno than it first appears, ties the lead to more mayhem and death….I enjoy the Nic Costa series best when it is situated in Rome, but the occasional trips outside that city are intriguing too. Unfortunately, I lived in San Francisco for many years and the inaccuracies in this book distracted me from the story: for example, one cannot see the downtown skyline with the ocean behind it from above the Haight as the ocean is in the opposite direction, and poison ivy exists on the US East Coast, not in California (where we have poison oak - a minor point, but still). Those annoyances aside, this is a solid entry in the series, while being rather less gory than some of the other novels; I don’t think that one would have to have read the earlier books to enjoy this one, except of course that it is a richer experience if one is already familiar with these characters. Recommended!… (plus d'informations)

When two people are found murdered in a quiet studio in Rome, the police are mesmerized by a painting hanging above the bodies, one that is unmistakably an unknown Carravagio. But the studio holds more mysteries than these, as investigation reveals the corpses of numerous women, and the clues point toward one of the richest and most unreachable men in Rome. Nic Costa and his colleagues are determined to bring the criminal to book, but soon the case turns far more dangerous, and personal, than any of them could have imagined….This is the sixth Nic Costa novel, and like its predecessors it is complex, difficult to read at times (because of grisly scenes) and full of well-realized characters. Rome itself, its history and especially its art, figures more strongly in this entry than in some of the other books in the series, which makes the reader want to travel there to see the places for oneself - and, hopefully, not to get murdered! Recommended.… (plus d'informations)

Fourteen years ago, a young boy went missing after his archeologist father left him in caves underneath a section of Rome; when he learns that some of his students were in the caves too, the father goes mad and kills the leading student. Now, fourteen years later, he’s out of prison and ready to finish punishing those people he holds responsible for the loss of his son - including Leo Falcone, one of the officers investigating the original disappearance. And he will stop at nothing to obtain his revenge….”The Seventh Sacrament” is the fifth book in Mr. Hewson’s Nic Costa series and it continues deepening the relationships between Nic, his partner Gianni Peroni, Leo and their respective girlfriends. As with the earlier books, there is a lot of graphic violence, some very gruesome indeed, but if the reader can deal with violence in their books, these are well worth reading both for the really well-depicted relationships and the convoluted but quite believable plots; recommended, but start with the first one (“A Season for the Dead”)!… (plus d'informations)

Nic Costa, Gianni Peroni and Leo Falcone have been temporarily exiled from Rome as a result of their police work that ruffled more than a few feathers; they are currently finishing out their exile in Venice, where they are despised by the local constabulary and itching to leave the tourist-infested place. When a couple of unsavory deaths occur at a glass-making factory on a nearby island, the local police ask that the Romans clear up the matter for them quickly: it is obvious that the husband killed the wife and then, remorseful, himself, so if they can just do a quick investigation and come up with that conclusion, everybody will be happy and the Romans can go home a little early. Unfortunately, the local police don’t know Nic, Gianni and Leo - not at all…. “The Lizard’s Bite” is the fourth in David Hewson’s Nic Costa series, and although it’s set in Venice rather than Rome, it is just as complex and brutal as the earlier three novels. The relationships between the three men and Nic and Gianni’s girlfriends as well are given more depth as the series goes on, and the complicated ways in which Italian justice seems to work (or not) are very strongly depicted. I like the way that our heroes never give up a case; they are shown as being perhaps the only honest detectives in the police forces of Italy, although of course they have their own failings as well. Highly recommended, but make sure you have a strong stomach before trying these books out!… (plus d'informations)