Fans of the Italian-based Nic Costa series will find this, the eighth, a bit different from the norm. It seems to be Hewson’s outcry against political machinations and terrorism. It involves a secret group called Gladio which, according to the author’s notes, exists. We are in Rome, host city to the G8 conference, and the atmosphere is explosive, literally. With a mixture of Gladio intervention, the psychotic leader of an ancient sect, The Blue Demon, with his own agenda and our police team seemingly all pulling in different directions, this is fascinating stuff, incredibly thought-provoking and rather frightening.
Twenty years ago, a mysterious group called the Blue Demon committed a series of bizarre and ritualistic crimes evoking the legacy of the lost race of the Etruscans, and leaving in their wake a group of dead students, a murdered couple, a cryptic message and a kidnapped child. Now, the leaders of the G8 are descending on Rome for a summit at the Quirinale Palace. But when a politician is found ritually murdered, seemingly by a strange young man dressed as an Etruscan god, detective Nic Costa suspects that the old case was never really solved. The Blue Demon appear to have returned - and planning, under the leadership of the fanatical Andrea Petrakis, to unleash a devastating sequence of attacks on the city. As Costa and his team start to dig deeper into the past, they find that there are still too many unanswered questions - and much more to the history of the Blue Demon than anyone wants to admit...'Hewson is a daunting talent - a writer who is master stylist, who respects the audience's intelligence and who effortlessly keeps the thrills coming a mile a minute' - Jeffery Deaver.
David Hewson was born in Yorkshire in 1953. He was a journalist from the age of seventeen, working most recently for the Sunday Times. In addition to travel books, he has written a number of novels including nine titles in the Detective Nic Costa series set mostly in Rome. The author lives in Kent.
