All Entries in the "Reviews" Category

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 in that amazing, haunted city. And David Hewson’s new book is one of the best in recent memory - not as police-oriented as Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti series or Hewson’s own A Season for the Dead (although there is an interesting female cop at the edges of it), but much more a character study of how Venice shapes the lives and deaths of its visitors.

Hewson has created a brave and fascinating double strand of linked plots… a breathtaking juggling act spanning more than 250 years, featuring a missing Guarneri violin and a magnificent, unsigned piece of music that even the great Vivaldi realizes is beyond his abilities.

Tasty little insider jokes abound: The 1733 hero wonders in a letter why the pompous owner of a popular coffeehouse called Triofante “doesn’t just name the place after himself and have done with it.” The fact that the 1733 owner’s name was Floriano Francesconi, and the present-day coffeehouse (now the home of the $20 cup of espresso) is named Florian’s, is part of the book’s pleasure. Vivaldi is a sadly grotesque but still powerful musical force, and even the French writer Rousseau comes in for his share of needling.Add horribly believable scenes of violence, enough sex to ensure the city’s reputation for romance, as well as great gobbets of food and scenery both splendid and squalid, and you begin to see why Lucifer’s Shadow is unputdownable.

Joe Hartlaub, BookReporter

Delacorte Press has somewhat defied conventional wisdom by publishing two works by a new (to these shores) author within a few months of each other. This was no doubt done with the knowledge that anyone who had read A Season for the Dead would welcome more Hewson, and welcome it immediately. For myself, it would be fine if every month brought the arrival of a new Hewson novel. There is no one who is doing this type of work - work that by turns has echoes of Christie, Dickens, O. Henry and even Poe on each page, and yet is unshakably contemporary and unmistakably Hewson. Lucifer’s Shadow, set in different time periods, is itself a timeless work, a classic. Highest possible recommendation.

Margaret Cannon, Globe & Mail, Toronto

This superb thriller… isn’t a Nic Costa, and it’s set in Venice, not Rome. But once again, Hewson takes us into the heart and sensibility of a city. This time there are two parallel stories, 250 years apart, and they both work beautifully.

..All this buildup sets up the story of a search that weaves the two times together with a murder, a mystery and a missing masterpiece. Hewson sets his scene masterfully, using the sights, colours, sounds and history of Venice to make the city a character, and it all works perfectly. Nic Costa is great, but nobody will miss him here.

Jennifer Baker, Booklist

This intelligent and highly detailed thriller by British author Hewson (A Season for the Dead, 2003) rivals Perez-Reverte’s The Flanders Panel (1994) in historical intricacy, complexity of motive, and multileveled storytelling. Masterfully plotted, the novel alternates between present-day and eighteenth-century Venice, following flawed and unwary innocents down the devil’s path, tempted by visions of fame, personal glory, and love. In 1733, a wealthy patron of the arts supplies a lovely and talented Jewish woman with a Guarneri violin and the venue for her debut as a concert soloist in a world hostile to both women and Jews.

In modern Venice, a young scholar is manipulated into selling a stolen antique violin and pretending authorship of a brilliant concerto recently unearthed in his employer’s basement. Both stories follow naive young men who fall in love with gifted and troubled women musicians, then become involved in tracking killers who leave behind only traces of their female victims. The pungent canals of beautiful Venice carry readers on a metaphorical journey, tracing the spread of evil through ghetto, church, concert hall, and even the mansions of the elite. Prepare for a devilish ride in which beauty masks wickedness, and righteousness is relative.

Sunday Times

Richly enjoyable, sophisticated and beguiling entertainment.

The Times

Venice is painted beautifully, both then and now, and this would be a splendid book to read after you have taken the evening air in the Piazza San Marco, or when gliding down the Grand Canal.

Omaha World-Herald

English author David Hewson sweeps readers into the canals, grand halls and aging villas of Venice as two tales set hundreds of years apart unfold. Moving between the intertwined stories, Hewson tests whether readers-and his protagonists-know who is trustworthy and who is the Venetian Lucifer, with the ability to hide his real motives behind an engaging smile.

‘A man must recognize Satan when he sees him,’ one of the characters warns. ‘Particularly in a city such as this.’

In writing this thriller, Hewson was inspired by his interest in music and in the Venice that most tourists don’t get to see. The book revolves around an antique violin and a mysterious but masterly piece of classical music discovered in a printer’s basement. Hewson mixes in romance, murder and a police investigation to ratchet up the intrigue. The book takes readers along to solve the modern-day mystery as it simultaneously reveals the historical tale of the violin and music.

Uniting the two stories are the Venetian landmarks and villas that serve as a backdrop to both. The result is a real page-turner that keeps readers pushing forward to find out how the two tales end and intersect. Hewson hides his devilish characters behind smiles with enough art that when their true character is revealed, it comes as sort of a surprise. Hewson’s work has been compared before to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and, with this story, the comparison is suiting-but not because of story line. Hewson jumps back and forth between the modern-day and historical tale. Just like Brown and in suspense-novel fashion, he gets one plot line moving just to switch over to the other. The result keeps the reader eagerly awaiting the next development.

One of Hewson’s strengths in the book is his ability to capture Venice and show a side to the city not found in travel books. But Lucifer’s Shadow requires the reader to slow down and take in the sights; they are important to the story line as well. The ending doesn’t wrap everything up in a nice little package, inviting readers to make some of the final connections themselves. The result is a nice, easy read that most will find a devilishly good way to while away the last days of summer.

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 cast of characters, some just touched on in the first book, is coming alive.

Hewson’s strong suit is his ability to blend ancient and modern Rome, a feat that happens naturally if you’re standing at the edge of the Janiculum, but is difficult otherwise. Hewson’s plot, woven with ancient lore, has just the right amount of information and deduction.Teresa Lupo is a pathologist longing for the big find. When a woman’s body is found in a peat bog near the Tiber, she thinks she has it. The body is recent, but there are signs pointing to an ancient ritual, a killing in a manner not seen for centuries. A hidden cult? Lupo is set on uncovering the secret. That determination is deadly, as Insp. Leo Falcone knows. He fears for Lupo’s life as the investigation takes the Rome police into the inner sanctums of criminals hidden not only by power but by history.Along the way, the story picks up the tales of detectives Costa and Peroni, mafioso Emilio Neri, and an American mobster on holiday. All that, and then another young woman is missing and presumed murdered. This is a terrific novel by a fine emerging British talent.

Strand Magazine says…
No less intricate and atmospheric than the first novel in this series, A Season for the Dead, Hewson’s second police procedural set in today’s colorful, corrupt Rome… seethes with intrigue and depravity. This psychologically wrenching novel delves deep into the theme of Euripedes’ enigmatic classical tragedy Bacchae - that humanity ignores or tries to sublimate its unconscious drives at its own risk. Peroni sums it up succinctly: ‘One day when you’re least expecting it, the crazy gene wakes up and you know it’s pointless trying to fight.’ And that ‘crazy gene’ overcomes ethics, morals, even reason itself.

In the leading book website Book Reporter Joe Hartlaub writes…
Hewson is nothing less and never less than marvelous throughout. He does not even attempt to explain the labyrinthine and uneasy connections between the Italian police and organized crime and the always blurry line which is both a line of demarcation and commonality between the two, but illustrates it so sharply through anecdotal description that one comes away with an understanding which is difficult to articulate but easy to know.

Hewson does not wait until the end… to begin reigning in his numerous plot lines, choosing instead to introduce and resolve issues from beginning to end, so that by the end of this magnificent work, there is no sense of a rush to resolution, even as, unknown to the reader, there is much to be resolved.

The depth of what Hewson has accomplished, however, goes beyond his considerable plotting and narrative skills. For what Hewson has created… may arguably be one of the most strongly and subtly feminist novels of recent note. The women at the beginning of this work are all victims; by the end…things are…well, they are not the same. This is a work, and an author, of unforgettable stature.

Jay Strafford of the Richmond Times-Dispatch writes…
On the heels of his stunning first entry in the Nic Costa series, A Season for the Dead , British author David Hewson returns to modern-day Rome for a second book involving the police detective. As The Villa of Mysteries opens, Costa is back on the job after six months recupation from what befell him in the first book. He and his new partner, Gianni Peroni, are getting to know each other when a woman reports that her teenage daughter has been abducted… Among the nasty secrets uncovered are a Dionysian cult, a mob connection, and government corruption.As he did in A Season for the Dead, Hewson writes a compellingly complex novel, one with numerous twists. Near the end, one surprises-and a second stuns. A haunting portayal of evil-and damaged women- The Villa of Mysteries will leave readers eager for Costa’s third adventure.

Jennifer Baker of Booklist says…
Once again capturing the imagination of historical mystery lovers, the author of Lucifer’s Shadow brings an ancient Dionysian ritual to light as a clue in this riveting and fast-paced thriller… A complex and satisfying mystery from a master plot maker.

From Mystery News
This is a richly layered crime novel. It takes the reader into a sometimes slow but always fascinating journey through the rituals of ancient Rome as well as the rites of the modern mob. Background is as important as is the back story of all the major characters. This makes them all more believable, more human, and much more interesting.The author’s sense of place is wonderful. The city of Rome lays before us as we sip coffee in one of the sunny piazzas, wander through a narrow back street half in shadow, stare at monuments to the powerful ancient empire. I can almost taste the chilled white wine or the ice cream in the Piazza Navona… An intriguing and thoughtfully complex story. Many things are not what they seem and the author delights in surprising the reader more than once in this finely done crime novel.

Beth Cason, of the Anniston Star writes…
After losing his partner, Luca Rossi, on his previous case, and after six months of recuperation, Italian detective Nic Costa rejoins the police force… his commanding officer pairs him with a veteran officer from vice, Gianni Peroni.On their first call they are sent to investigate the discovery of the body of a young girl found in a peat bog. At first it looks like a find for archaeologists instead of detectives. However, when the chief pathologist begins to examine the body, she quickly finds that the girl has been dead for only 16 years, not 1,600. The mystery becomes a puzzling mass of threads, becoming increasingly entangled as it moves along.While Nic and Gianni struggle to find a lead to the missing girl, their boss, Falcone, struggles with the anti-mafia unit and local mobster Emilio Neri. Whatever happened sixteen years ago, at the last celebration of the Liberalia, has twisted emotions and resulted in a storm of revenge. It’s enough to say that Congreve was right when he pronounced, “Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned”.Hewson’s gift lies in character creation. In a previous book, A Season for the Dead, the author made Luca Rossi a perfect foil for Nic; the same is true here, as he substitutes Peroni for Rossi. Peroni, by any definition, is a crooked cop. Yet he carries an air of stability and decency about him, despite the shady company he keeps; recall Sipowicz in the early years of NYPD Blue. Here the well-worn plot angle of wily veteran mentoring less-experienced partner is carried off with fresh insight.While British writer Hewson’s books may seem too literary for some readers, they are well worth the effort for those willing to take the plunge. Characters as memorable as Nic and Gianni are hard to find in any genre.

The UK magazine Crime Time wrote…
These modern Roman cops are as richly disparate as in any longer-running series (this is Hewson’s second) and the atmosphere is as densely layered as cold lasagne, but I’m trivialising what is, in truth, a beautifully structured and absorbing thriller. The characters polish up as individuals, freshly drawn. The city of Rome, her cops, bureaucrats and criminals, shine hard and clear as sunlight bouncing off the Trevi fountain. But they’re a lot less pretty. And this is tasty stuff.

A four-star review from Ink:
…a novel to savour - imagine the deceptively relaxed atmosphere of Donna Leon’s Brunetti novels mixed with the darkness of Ian Rankin’s Rebus sequence. Excellent.

From The Good Book Guide…
A riveting tale of revenge brought to life by sharp characterisation and powerful dynamics.

Reviews of The Sacred Cut

The third novel in the Nic Costa series has been made one of 2006’s Top 10 crime novels by Booklist, the influential magazine of the American Library Association. Booklist’s Bill Ott describes the book as ‘ a corruption-drenched Italian procedural that blends historical detail with contemporary cynicism’, and adds, All the historical detail gives the proceedings a tasty complexity comparable to Pérez-Reverte, but what really makes the novel work is the interplay between the anti-establishment Roman cops.’

P.G. Koth of the Houston Chronicle comments…
For all the high-stakes action, in which a serial killer with possible ties to the black ops of U.S. intelligence wreaks havoc in snowbound Rome, it is the compelling character of… three men that drives the book. The fiercely principled trio, rare enough in the ranks of Rome police, are especially distinct in comparison to the arrogant FBI team, partnered with Italy’s own intelligence ‘ghosts,’ that takes control of the investigation of a murdered woman Costa and Peroni find inside the Pantheon.

She is buried in snow beneath the oculus: ‘a steady swirling stream … , pirouetting around itself with the perfect, precise symmetry of a strand of human DNA, [falling] in the dead center of the room.’ Similarly fine passages further describing the snowstorm that has cloaked the city in silence punctuate the plot, which hinges on a homeless Iraqi girl who is a compulsive pickpocket, and inexperienced FBI agent Emily Deacon, who also has a personal stake in the case.

The novel’s contrast between the gray areas that spies negotiate and the clear imperatives of the law is stark. Peeling away the layers that obfuscate those imperatives becomes a mesmerizing experience.

Joe Hartlaub, of Bookreporter, writes…
Hewson, perhaps more than any other contemporary author, has combined a sense of grand concept - so popular these days - with believable, sympathetic characters who one cares about. Hewson is nothing short of marvelous, as always, mixing in legitimate conclusions with red herrings so that readers and characters both engagingly stumble along to conclusions that may or may not be correct.

As entertaining as this is, however, nothing can match Hewson’s ability to capture the flavor of Rome - a heady stew composed of its people, culture and geography in equal parts - so that what we ultimately are favored with is a mystery steeped in a culture that is contemporaneously familiar and exotic.

Hank Wagner in Mystery Scene…
A happy blend of police procedural and international thriller, Hewson’s third Nic Costa novel finds the trinity of Costa, Peroni and their irascible chief Leo Falcone in fine form, fearlessly grappling with criminals, bureaucracies, their significant others, and the American intellligence community in the pursuit of the truth. Providing laughter and thrillers in equal amounts, Hewson makes it look easy.

The Sacred Cut is totally compelling, one of those rare thrillers which emphasis character over action, although Hewson acquits himself admirably in that department as well. It’s the attention Hewson lavishes on his entire cast that keeps readers; interest piqued; all the rest, as they say, is gravy.

Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times Book Review writes…
Hewson can dress a stage with operatic panache, and here his mise-en-scène is spectacular; the Pantheon, its ancient dome open to ‘a steady, swirling stream of snow, pirouetting around itself with the perfect, precise symmetry of a strand of human DNA’ and enveloping a mutilated body in a funnel of ice. (The) Nic Costa novels, set mainly in Rome and featuring a personable young homicide detective, are built with pleasing symmetry. In the previous books… the settings range from the Vatican library to an archaeological site at Ostia Antica, and the reference points include a Caravaggio painting and ancient Bacchanalian rituals. The killings, despite their savagery, have theatrical flair and are put to vivid use in fascinating lectures on Italian art and history.

Publishers Weekly
Hewson’s solid writing and multidimensional characters command attention from start to finish of this smart, literate thriller.

Kirkus Reviews
Hewson’s literate prose, bolstered by local color and historical tidbits, makes for top-flight entertainment.

Margaret Cannon of the Globe and Mail, Toronto, says…
This is the third novel in this Roman cop series, and I’m hooked. I love the way Hewson combines 4,000 years of Roman history with 21st-century police plots. I love the Ed McBain style, with recurring characters who play different roles in each book. Most of all, I love the atmosphere and the beautifully crafted plots.

Steve Lewis of Mystery File…
This is as intriguing a police procedural as I’ve read in a long time. Humorous when it needs to be, sad when it needs to be, philosophical when it needs to be, and real all of the time, this is a long novel which you will wish was even longer.

Reviews of The Lizard’s Bite

Publishers Weekly, October 2006, starred review
British author Hewson’s wonderfully complex and finely paced fourth crime novel (after 2005’s The Sacred Cut) to feature Roman detective Nic Costa and his unconventional partner, Gianni Peroni, finds the pair exiled to Venice, where they look into the case of glassmaker Uriel Arcangelo, who apparently killed his wife, Bella, then committed suicide. Instead of coming to the foreordained conclusion higher authority demands, Costa and Peroni determine, “We’re no longer trying to understand the means Uriel Arcangelo used to kill his wife. But why, how and with whom the late Bella appears to have conspired to kill him.” An urbane and wealthy Englishman who wants to buy the Isolo degli Arcangeli glassworks becomes an important suspect. Hewson is particularly strong on characterization, revealing each personality subtly and naturally as he or she reacts to the intricate plot developments. Newcomers as well as series fans will be enthralled.

Bookreporter, Joe Hartlaub
David Hewson may well be the finest mystery writer of our time. In my humble opinion, he’s also one of our best contemporary writers, period. There are elements of Agatha Christie, Graham Greene and William Shakespeare in his work, but when you sit down and crack the spine of A SEASON OF THE DEAD or THE VILLA OF MYSTERIES, what you have is all and uniquely Hewson.Hewson peppers THE LIZARD’S BITE with a number of interesting - and fascinating - factoids about places and subjects that compel the reader to find out more on their own. But this common thread (among others) through Hewson’s novels is not performed by rote. Think instead of a tightrope walker who performs his work daily for the same audience but introduces a new, and jeopardous, element every time. That’s a Hewson novel. Very highly recommended.

Margaret Cannon, Toronto Globe and Mail
If you haven’t already discovered this brilliant series featuring Nic Costa and a cast of Roman detectives, you have a treat in store. The Lizard’s Bite is the fourth book in the set and, like the other three, it is superb. Hewson likes to combine history, art and detection, and he delivers them all with different focuses for different books. The Lizard’s Bite is about glass. Followers know that Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni have been exiled from Rome and sent to Venice. Only a Roman would find that a trial. Leo Falcone, meanwhile, is assigned to the Carabinieri’s art-theft division. Everyone converges on the Veneto in summer, a blistering season of sirocco winds and dry, burning heat. In Murano, the glassmakers spin the exquisite spirals and colours that have been the trademark of Venetian glass for centuries.One stifling night, Uriel Arcangelo tends the family furnace. His job is to have the molten glass ready for the glassblowers in the morning. But more than glass is burning in the Arcangelo furnaces, and the terrors of the night turn into death and destruction, exposing a secret that can destroy the entire family.Hewson manages to tuck in plenty of art secrets and thrills, and some nods to the fad for Da Vinci Code-style mysteries. This is another great novel by a fine author.

The Literary Review
Hewson’s very enjoyable Italian mysteries are cleverly worked out and sharply written, and his take on the secretive city is much more uncomfortable and sinister than Leon’s (Donna Leon’s Through a Glass, Darkly, which is reviewed previously). In his hero’s eyes it is like ‘a bad yet familiar relative, dangerous to know, difficult to let go’.

New York Times
The mises-en-scene of David Hewson’s elaborate Italian-based novels are always so flamboyantly operatic that I keep expecting the principals to break out in song…. told with dashing style, in atmospheric set pieces that capture the theatrical grandeur of Venice and the pockets of miserable squalor behind its splendid facade.

Boston Globe
Haillie Ephron writes… ‘This complex novel, a journey to hell and back, is leavened with food and humor and propelled by suspense and action. The atmospherics are extraordinary — Hewson does Venice every bit as well as Tony Hillerman does New Mexico. The ending is particularly satisfying, like watching a multistage finale to a spectacular fireworks display.’

Denver Post
Layered into the story are some complex relationships among members of the withdrawn and insular Arcangelo family, clinging to their ancient art in a world overrun by tourists looking for cheap trinkets, as well as a stalled love affair between Costa and former FBI agent Emily Deacon. And it is complicated further by a rich, powerful and amoral Englishman (from an earlier non-series book, Lucifer’s Shadow), who holds the key to the whole mystery but can’t be touched by the Venetian police. Venice itself, a “beautiful graveyard of a city,” as one of the characters calls it, is always the heart and soul of this rich, complex and thoroughly bewitching book.

Toronto Sun
This fourth book in David Hewson’s original series… again features Roman detective Nic Costa and his colleagues. On a tiny island near Murano, the glass furnace of the Arcangeli family is dangerously overheating. Uriel Arcangelo is killed by a savage fire, which almost consumes the furnace. His death is deemed an accident. But when his wife’s body is found, the Roman detectives are asked to conduct their own investigation in time for English tycoon Hugo Massiter to finish buying the Arcangeli island.Massiter is on his way to becoming a modern-day Doge in Venice, in terms of power and influence, and although the detectives suspect he is involved in the deaths at the glass factory, he seems untouchable. The densely plotted story needs to be carefully followed, but the drama and characters make it an absorbing read.

Fresh Fiction
Hewson has written another spellbinding, atmospheric novel of gripping suspense that will keep readers riveted to the pages.

I love a Mystery
David Hewson has already received raves for his atmospheric mysteries that feature a highly likeable cast of characters. Intelligent, multilevel plots coupled with Hewson’s deft touch in recreating Italian culture and geography have made this an exceptionally entertaining series. You won’t regret spending a couple of nights with Nic Costa and his friends.

Gaylene Chesnut, Whodunit Canada
David Hewson is my favourite British male writer - tied with Ian Rankin. The Lizard’s Bite is the fourth book in the Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni series set in Italy. I highly recommend that you read the series in order to maximize your reading pleasure and I know you will love the characters.

George Byrne of the Evening Herald, Dublin
In his fourth novel Yorkshire-born David Hewson continues the adventures and travails of his Italian detectives Nic Costa and Giani Peroni, this time laying low in Venezia following their cage-rattling cases in Rome. Before long Costa and Peroni find themselves involved with the strange Arcangeli family and a sinister British millionaire eager to finalise a property deal. It’s all quite breathless but with an eye for detail and a grasp of language which elevates it above the norm.

The Joburg Book Review, South Africa, says…
If you haven’t come across Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni of the Italian Questura yet, then meet them in The Lizard’s Bite. Throw their boss, the saturnine Inspector Leo Falcone, into the mix; include Emily, a sexy American ex-FBI agent now turned Italian architecture expert; add Gianni’s girlfriend, Teresa, a Roman pathologist; and then stir in a power-crazed British multi-millionaire on the financial skids; and presto! you have a wonderful recipe for an unputdownable thriller.The setting is Venice, where Nic and Gianni have been banished for nine months, after messing up on a case in their native Rome, and Venice herself is as much a principal player in the story as the characters themselves. This is the Venice of the glossy travel brochures - golden sunsets on copper-coloured domes, bustling vaporettos, and singing gondoliers, shabby but still beautiful palazzos, reflecting in the dappled waters of the lagoons. But it is also a dying city, slowly drowning in its own stinking waters, as paradoxically, at the same time, it is being choked to death by the hordes of visitors preyed upon by greedy locals, by the huge cruise ships, and by masses of people, as it relentlessly turns into a mix of hotels, apartments and seedy tourist traps. Crime, corruption, carnality are the way of life, and David Hewson gets into the very soul of the city as his fascinating tale unfolds.You get great characters, a great story and you get the great city of Venice. What more could you want?

Reviews of The Seventh Sacrament

Booklist, the Americal Library Association’s influential magazine, says of The Seventh Sacrament…

Hewson’s uncompromising trio of antiestablishment Roman cops—Nic Costa, Gianni Peroni, and their boss, Leo Falcone—are back in the Eternal City and up to their necks in another vat of hot water. As with the previous four entries in this always-captivating series, the crime on the front burner—a dead body discovered in a Roman church—is merely the entrée point to a case with tentacles extending deep into ancient history…Hewson keeps his readers securely tethered to a narrative lifeline; like Theseus on the trail of the minotaur, we follow the plot around countless blind corners but never lose our way out of the maze. The interplay between Hewson’s three cops—and between them and the especially rich supporting cast—lift this novel far above the plot-driven Da Vinci Code and its many imitators. A superb mix of history, mystery, and humanity.

Amazon’s top reviewer Harriet Klausner is among the growing number of critics welcoming the latest Nic Costa novel. She writes…

Costa’s last outing (The Lizard’s Bite) was one of the top police procedurals of 2006; The Seventh Sacrament will prove likewise in 2007. The story line is fast-paced while it smoothly moves back and forth between the present and the past. The investigation is top rate filled with twists and turns while Leo brings a human element with his feelings of inadequacy and guilt. Fans will appreciate David Hewson’s superior Roman adventure.

I Love A Mystery’s Bob Walch declares…

A clever and utterly surprising ending will stun even the most jaded reader. If you are one of those individuals who believe there are very few writers left who can make you sit up and applaud, be forewarned. You’ll be putting your hands together in appreciation of David Hewson!

Publisher’s Weekly says…

The intricate fifth thriller from British author Hewson to feature Roman detective Nic Costa (after 2006’s The Lizard’s Bite) artfully weaves several points-of-view as it shifts between past and present. Fourteen years after seven-year-old Alessio Bramante, the son of an eminent archeology professor, disappeared underneath Rome’s ancient Circus Maximus, someone seeking revenge attacks Costa’s colleague, Insp. Leo Falcone, who worked on the unsolved case of the missing boy. Falcone and Costa start asking questions that should have been asked during the original bungled investigation. The subterranean labyrinths just may hold the answers to a mystery whose poignant resolution few readers will anticipate.

From The Times Literary Supplement…

There are hints of Dan Brown here, but David Hewson handles the material intelligently and plot and characterization remain the novel’s strengths. Bramante, the anti-hero, has some of the hall marks of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter though without the misplaced comedy. He is a monstrous creation with a terrifying sexual appetite matched only by his murderous cruelty. The policemen, from the new commissario down to the old sergeant on the front desk, are lively and well drawn, as are the three main characters, Costa, Peroni and Falcone, and their love interests.

The Calgary Herald says…

Beneath the Vespa-crowded streets of Rome, there are other, much older incarnations of the Eternal City. These older Romes are littered with clues to a mysterious pagan past, clues that can be found in the rubble of middens, roads and religious altars. It is this hidden Rome that fascinates David Hewson. Here, in his fifth book featuring his misfit cops Leo Falcone, Gianni Peroni and Nic Costa, he explores both the secrets that haunt old Rome and the terrible secrets that haunt families. Hewson’s work has been compared to that of Donna Leon and Dan Brown, and it will certainly appeal to fans of both writers. His stories are fresh, original, brightly written and very smart, and his latest book is his best so far. This is definitely among this spring’s must-read crime fictions.

The York Press…

The Seventh Sacrament is Yorkshire-born David Hewson’s fifth mystery set in Italy featuring detectives Nic Costa and Gianna Peroni. Back in Rome after their dramatic adventures in Venice, the detectives set about rebuilding their lives. But the sudden appearance of fresh bloodstains on a T-shirt in a local museum soon has the old team back in action again, and it’s not long before they are embroiled in a mystery involving both the ancient cult of Mithras and a sinister ossuary, The House of Bones. If you’re a fan of Dan “Da Vinci Code” Brown you’ll love this.

Reviewing The Evidence …

David Hewson can really evoke an Italian atmosphere well – whether the modern city or the frightening underground city. The twists of the story are cleverly done – even when the situation seems obvious he can produce a strange response that can turn the tale on its head. The climax is absolutely shattering.

The Reading Post says…

Hewson is a talented writer with the gift of creating a good, old-fashioned page-turning thriller. His characters shine with real depth and conviction and the plot is breathtakingly imaginative. A superb read for crime fans who like their mysteries both ancient and modern.

Woman magazine (circulation 536,364, which has made the title a Book Club choice)

A thrilling tale…with the author’s captivating descriptions of long-forgotten passageways and temples, and his skill in creating a sinister undertone keeping you, hooked from the off. A highly dramatic tale for those who like a sprinkling of culture with their crime thriller.

Choice magazine

This gripping novel incorporates modern Rome, mysterious happenings in churches and the Roman cult of Mithras. David Hewson has a superb sense of pace and place, his characters feel real, and he writes a page-turner detective story like no other.

The Mystery and Thriller Club (UK) magazine says…

The fifth Nic Costa and Gianna Peroni mystery is a devilishly compelling brew of conspiracy, vengeance and murder. Brilliantly entertaining and deftly written, The Seventh Sacrament is a sophisticated and original thriller that cements David Hewson’s burgeoning reputation as one of crime writing’s most exciting talents.