A few days before Christmas and during one of the worst
snow storms to hit Rome, police detective Nic Costa and his
partner, Gianni Peroni, answer an alarm at the historic
Pantheon to discover a gruesome murder. A woman's naked
body has been carefully posed in the center of the marble
floor. She's been strangled and has a horrific carving,
eventually identified as the Sacred Cut, over her back. The
detectives soon find that the awful weather is not the only
thing they are going to have to carefully maneuver through
as they search for an international serial killer. The case
gets even more bizarre as the American embassy, the FBI and
members of the Italian police hierarchy become involved.
British author David Hewson has written a
spellbinding novel of suspense with a myriad cast of
interesting and realistic characters in a masterfully
written and intricately detailed plot. With his deft hand,
Hewson skillfully makes the weather and the entire setting
of Rome important pieces of the storyline. Long passages of
descriptive narrative may at times slow the reading down
some, but the action is never far away. This is an
intelligently crafted book that will take some
concentration on the reader's part to keep up with all the
surprising twists and turns and the many people involved in
the unfolding plot, but the final resolution is nothing
short of exemplary. THE SACRED CUT is Hewson's third Nic
Costa novel with the fourth, THE LIZARD'S BITE, set for
hardcover release October 31, 2006. (Be sure to check out
the author's web site for more insight into this series and
his research.)
Under the Pantheon’s great dome, a woman’s body lies on the
marble floor, carefully positioned with a gruesome carving
on her back. This horrific murder hurtles Rome’s police
force into a collision with U.S. agents -- and a secret
that has festered for fifteen years, now unraveling in the
world’s most enigmatic city.
When Detective Nic Costa arrives at the scene, he is
unprepared for what he finds, or for the ambush that leaves
his only witness vanished into the night. The dead woman
was American. Within hours, U.S. agents descend with a take-
no-prisoners style and a shocking story to tell: the killer
has struck before, in monuments all over the world, leaving
the same cryptic message carved onto the bodies of the
victims.
But one agent, beautiful, blond Emily Deacon, has yet
another story to tell Nic -- about a stunning act of
deception that may lead back to the U.S. government, and
her own chilling, personal connection to the killer. Now,
as the first murder leads to more grisly slayings and a
motley crew of veteran Roman cops jousts with the
Americans, Nic is pulled into a woman’s harrowing search
for the truth -- a search that will take them both into the
mind of a madman, into a shocking conspiracy -- and into a
dark episode in a nation’s long-forgotten past.
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