It’s a scorching summer in Rome. Sara Farnese sits in the Vatican Library. The streets are deserted. A man walks towards her. He is familiar. He is carrying a blood-stained bag…

Stefano’s left arm, the one holding the weapon, swept the table, swept everything on it, the precious volume of Apicius, her expensive notebook computer, down to the hard marble floor with a clatter. He said in a loud voice that was half crazy, half dead, ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.’

As the media gathers and Vatican officials close ranks, a young detective is sent to the forefront of the case. Nic Costa is the son of an infamous Italian Communist, a connoisseur of Caravaggio, and a cop who barely looks his 27 years of age. Thrust into the heart of a killing spree that will rattle his city down to its ancient bones, Nic begins to see a pattern in the killings that follow, murders that seem to mimic the grisly martyrdoms of the early Church.

Racked by personal anxiety over his dying father, Costa starts on the long journey to uncover the truth about these horrific crimes, whatever the cost, whatever the pain. From the inner quarters of the Vatican, desperate to hide a financial embarrassment, to the poorer, squalid bed-sits where the city’s immigrants try to eke out a living, Costa takes on any who crosses his path, however influential, however damaging the cost to his career.

Shunned as the son of a Communist, treated with suspicion by many of those around him, Costa relies on his own intelligence and integrity to find a way into the life of the mysterious Sara Farnese, and unlock the key to the case. But it’s a journey that comes with a terrible risk, and a cost he can never foresee.

…breathtaking… a dark delight, a story that one is compelled to read at one sitting while simultaneously wishing it will never end.’ Bookreporter

Outsized, eccentric characters, a complex story and an abundance of historical detail make this engrossing book more than just another cookie-cutter, religious-nut serial killer thriller. Publishers Weekly

Let me tell you, this is great stuff… Praise be! Washington Post

David Hewson… is one of several crime writers opting for an Italian setting these days. On this form, Hewson is certainly the leader of the pack. Birmingham Post