Art, love and music in Venice, ancient and modern

In an ancient burial ground on an island off Venice, a young woman’s casket is pried open, an object is wrenched from her hands, and an extraordinary adventure begins. Crossing centuries, encompassing music, passion and murder, Lucifer’s Shadow gained the ‘highest possible recommendation’ from Bookreporter.com and was hailed as ‘one of the best of 2004′ by Deadly Pleasures.

Reviews of Lucifer’s Shadow

Lucifer’s Shadow was judged one of the best crime/mystery novels of 2004 by the very influential US Deadly Pleasures magazine

Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune

Good mysteries set in Venice are a growth industry: Every writer wants an excuse to do some research…

The first audio thriller

Former war crimes investigator Harold Middleton possesses a priceless, previously-unknown manuscript by Frederic Chopin. Within the notes of this work, which was originally found and hidden by the Nazis during World War II, lies a secret that has left death in its wake – and could kill tens of thousands more.

The Chopin Manuscript is a unique collaboration among 15 distinguished international thriller writers who came together to create a single audiobook with each author contributing a chapter to the ongoing story. The book is serialised and is hailed as the first-ever audio serial book.

Jeffery Deaver conceived the characters and the setting and put the plot in motion with the first chapter. David Hewson takes threads from this opening section to produce a second chapter which spins the story out of its opening in Warsaw to Rome, and sets it on the way to a climax in the US. From there the story was turned over to thirteen authors – including Lee Child, Lisa Scottoline, Joseph Finder, S. J. Rozan, and P. J. Parrish – who each wrote a chapter that propelled the story along. Along the way the plot took twists and turns as each author lent his or her own imprint on the tale. Characters were added as the action moved around the world — and the stakes got higher and higher. The book wrapped with Deaver writing the final two chapters bringing The Chopin Manuscript to its explosive conclusion.

The plot unfolds like this: Former war crimes investigator Harold Middleton possesses a priceless, previously-unknown manuscript by Frederic Chopin. Within the notes of this work, which was originally found and hidden by the Nazis during World War II, lies a secret that has left death in its wake – and could kill tens of thousands more. As Middleton races to unlock the mystery of the manuscript, he is accused of murder, pursued by federal agents and targeted by assassins. But the greatest threat comes from a man known only as Faust - a shadowy figure from Middleton’s past.

The Chopin Manuscript was the world’s first audio thriller, delivered serially. Readers received a new installment of 2-3 chapters every Tuesday, beginning September 25th. with the final instalment delivered on November 13th. It proved one of the fastest-selling audio titles of 2007, and a sequel is now under discussion.

The true story of a fight for rural England

I thought my journalism days were behind me. But sometimes life has a habit of turning things around in ways you least expect. In December 2005 I was in Rome researching what was to become the sixth Nic Costa novel, which will appear in 2008. Out of the blue I took a phone call from his wife which revealed that the large London university Imperial College had very big designs on the area where I was lucky enough to live.

The next ten months saw an extraordinary battle by ordinary people pitched against an army of well-paid professional developers trying to turn some of the most beautiful - and protected - countryside in England over to the bulldozer. They were just ordinary citizens appalled by what was being planned, in secret and with the covert support of our own public representatives. The most extraordinary part of all is… we won. After concerted local opposition and a string of revelations on save-wye.org , the web-site I set up as a public forum to discuss Imperial’s plans, the project collapsed.

What people said about Saved

Robin Page, the countryside writer and broadcaster who was for many years the host of One Man and his Dog, says of the book, ‘David Hewson writes thrillers. Saved is a real life thriller, exposing the sham of “local democracy”.…

What we fought for

This is the landscape of Wye and its surrounding countryside. Much of it would have disappeared under modern, mass housing if the Wye plan had gone ahead.

A standalone thriller, set in no-man’s-land

Bierce was a happily married cop with a bright future. Then one sunny day in July his wife, Miriam, and their young son, Ricky, were savagely beaten to death. Bierce was convicted of the murder of his family. Languishing on Death Row twenty-three years later, he still has no memory of the incident.

With his execution only seconds away, he is suddenly, inexplicably, released. But the world has moved on without him and the city he knew has become a strange and dangerous place.

Reviews for the first Nic Costa novel

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

Publisher’s Weekly

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.

A chance visit that turned into the Costa series

The Costa books came out of serendipity. I went to Rome to spend a week with the manuscript of Lucifer’s Shadow, thinking that would probably be the last novel I’d ever get published. I was about to be without a…

Reviews of The Villa of Mysteries

Margaret Cannon, Globe and Mail, Toronto writes…
If you missed A Season for the Dead, the first novel in this series set in modern Rome and featuring Inspector Leo Falcone, you’re in for a treat. This one’s even better and the…