( The Fallen Angel) perhaps his finest novel… It’s hard to see how the author could have made his dark tale more fascinating, entertaining and yet entirely serious than he has. Why are they so unwilling to co-operate, and who, or what, is the reason for their silence? Costa realises that the key to the truth lies with the Gabriels. Nic becomes obsessed with the case, intrigued by Mina’s story which seems to be linked to the sixteenth-century real-life tragedy of a young Italian noblewoman, Beatrice Cenci.Īs the investigation deepens, Rome’s dark and seedy side is uncovered, revealing a tangle of deceit, treachery and corruption.

It also becomes apparent that Malise’s family - mysterious and tragic daughter Mina, stoic wife Cecilia and troubled son Robert - may be keeping vital information hidden. When British academic Malise Gabriel falls to his death from a Rome apartment, detective Nic Costa rapidly comes to realise that there is much more to the accident than he first thought. In a scorching summer Nic Costa and his colleagues from the Rome Questura find themselves dispatched undercover to Italy’s beautiful, remote Calabrian coast and the coastal sword-fishing village of Cariddi in the shadow of the Aspromonte mountain. Their mission: to bring in the head of the feared mob, the ’Ndrangheta, who has offered to turn state witness.įinding themselves out of their depth in a lawless part of Italy where they are the outcasts, not the men in the hills, with their shotguns and rough justice, Costa and his team come to the shocking realization that there is a traitor in their midst, a discovery which threatens to pitch them as much against one another as the mob. Over the next eight books Nic and his colleagues delve into Italian history, art, culture and food, in Rome, Venice and for one brief outing partly in San Francisco in Dante’s Numbers. Now, after a break of nearly ten years, Nic Costa and his team are back… The Savage Shore (Book 10) The books boast an ensemble cast led by the young detective Nic Costa who first meet after a savage death in the Vatican Library in A Season for the Dead. Launched to wide acclaim in 2003, the Nic Costa novels have spanned nine titles and one spin-off standalone, Carnival for the Dead, featuring the popular pathologist character Teresa Lupo. No author has ever brought Rome so alive for me - nor made it seem so sinister.

Love and death in the Eternal City - Nic Costa is back

The Savage Shore by David Hewson