The Savage Shore

August 24, 2015
Distinctive characters compensate for the at times slow-moving plot of Hewson’s atmospheric Italian mystery, set mainly in Florence in 1986. Pino Fratelli, a semiretired carabineer, meets British graduate student Julia Wellbeloved, who’s studying the connection between violence and art, at a Florentine chapel, where a fresco of Adam and Eve has been defaced with blood. The culprit is Aldo Pontecorvo, who’s involved with a gunrunner for the Red Brigade. Hewson (Carnival for the Dead) doesn’t generate much suspense with the crime-solving efforts, even after the decapitation murder of an aristocrat. Nicely rendered chapters set 20 years earlier, during the historical flood of the title provide some colorful, though not strictly necessary, background. The book’s greatest strength is the engaging relationship that develops among Pino, Julia, and 22-year-old Luca Cassini, the not-so-bright carabineer assigned to help them. Readers who want to see more of this trio can only hope that their next case will be more intriguing.

October 1, 2015

Author of more than 25 books, including the Rome-based "Nic Costa" series, former British journalist Hewson introduces Pino Fratelli of the Florentine Carabinieri and English grad student Julia Wellbeloved. Pino, on permanent sick leave with an incurable brain tumor, attributes his illness to the unsolved rape and murder of his wife during the great flood that ravaged Florence in 1966. Two decades later Julia has come to the Italian city to work on her dissertation, a study of why violence is committed against works of art. She and Pino are thrust together following an act of vandalism that damages the figure of Eve in the Brancacci Chapel frescoes. Complicating matters is the murder of one of Florence's gay aristocrats, a man involved with an ancient secret society, La Brigata Spendereccia, in which 12 men gather for a monthly bacchanal that often results in rape. Has a new Savonarola risen to purify a corrupt city with his own Bonfire of the Vanities? VERDICT Hewson excellently integrates episodes from Florentine history into the lives of his intriguing heroes, who struggle against tremendous odds to solve mysteries old and new. Readers of Donna Leon and Michael Dibdin or Italian authors Andrea Camilleri and Carlo Lucarelli will find this gripping.--Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 10, 2018
Hewson’s tedious 10th Nic Costa thriller (after 2011’s Fallen Angel) transports the police detective and his team from Rome to Calabria, the home of a network of gangsters known as the ’Ndrangheta. Nic and his crew must find and arrest a “mysterious figure in the hierarchy of the ’Ndrangheta, who would turn pentito, state witness, and take down any number of crooks and fellow travelers.” In addition, he promises to turn in “the head of the combined Sicilian mobs.” Nic infiltrates the ’Ndrangheta with surprising ease, while his fellow police officers provide backup of sorts. That they talk loudly in a local restaurant about the case while disguised as tourists belies their supposed competence. Long excerpts from a guide book called Calabrian Tales offer fanciful explanations for the development of the ’Ndrangheta and Italy’s other criminal brotherhoods, musings on mythology and paganism, and some potted history. They also slow down the momentum. Readers will hope to see less padding and fewer digressions in Nic’s next outing. Agent: Alice Lutyens, Curtis Brown (U.K.).

September 1, 2018
Whatever Rome police detective Nic Costa's been doing in the unusually long break since his last outing (The Fallen Angel, 2011), it hasn't prepared him for the ups and downs he faces when he goes undercover with the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta.The gang leader who prefers to be known as Lo Spettro won't say why he's suddenly willing to give up his family to the Questura. But it's clear that despite his offer, approaching him will be a dangerous proposition. So arrangements are made for Costa to masquerade as Tomasso Leoni, a "minor criminal" from Guelph, Canada. For all his efforts, the deal is still perilous. Although Lo Spettro's daughter, Lucia Bergamotti, is clearly drawn to Maso Leoni, her brother Rocco is suspicious, territorial, and unpleasantly peremptory in his brutality. And the whimsically inscrutable Lo Spettro wants a sign of loyalty from Leoni before he delivers the goods: "You must kill and be seen to kill." The opening flashes forward to 10 days later and presents Leoni executing Leo Falcone and Gianni Peroni, a pair of heavies sent to Reggio to tell Emmanuel Akindele, the Nigerian immigrant who operates the Zanzibar on behalf of the 'Ndrangheta, that he needs to take out an insurance policy on the dive bar, with the first payment due immediately. Could Costa have pulled the plug on even a pair of extortionists with so few reservations? If he did, what are the likely consequences, in and out of the legal system? And is it really true, despite the Bible's assurances to the contrary, that "dead men don't rise"?The tale floats on a tide of dark threats, double-crosses, abrupt changes of heart, revelations that characters aren't as they seem, and indications that the best-kept secrets aren't secrets at all. Hewson does provide an excellent tour of "Italy's toe," which sounds both savage and strangely appealing.

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November 15, 2018
Followers of Hewson's acclaimed Nic Costa series will celebrate the return of the Rome police detective, absent since 2011's The Fallen Angel?. Typically, this series concerns elaborate crimes reaching back into Italian history and drawing heavily on Roman art and architecture. Not so much this time, as Costa and his fellow investigators go on the road to Calabria, drawn by the mouthwatering prospect of capturing the head of the notorious crime family, the 'Ndrangheta, who has volunteered to give himself up in exchange for his family's safety. The catch is that Costa must go underground with the gang, a kind of unofficial hostage, until the deal is done. The rest of the team broods as Costa undergoes an initiation of sorts and, along the way, finds himself falling in love with the daughter of the man he has come to arrest. This episode lacks some of the richness that came, in the earlier episodes, from the melding of ancient and modern story lines, but it gives us a new side of Costa, removed from his familiar haunts and forced to survive in a very different world. A welcome return of an outstanding crime series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)