Nic Costa
8 primary works • 12 total works
Book 2
When a young woman turns up dead in a peat bog, Teresa Lupo, a maverick pathologist, thinks she's got the victim of an ancient pagan ritual on her hands. She's wrong. Leo Falcone knows this case is recent history and the horror is still very much alive.
So begins an investigation that will take the police deep into the dark underworld of modern-day Rome's most disturbing and sinister secrets.
Nic Costa is trying to stay off the drink. Gianni Peroni used to work vice until he was caught in one of his own department's stings. Emilio Neri, the local Mafia boss, can't trust his own son and Vergil Wallis, the former American mobster, is refusing to talk. Meanwhile, someone is trying very hard to kill the pathologist. And now another beautiful young woman has gone missing ...
Book 3
For the first time in decades The Eternal City is paralysed by a blizzard. And a gruesome discovery is made in the Pantheon - one of Rome's most ancient and revered architectural treasures. Covered by softly falling snow is the body of a young woman - her back horribly mutilated . . . But before Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni of the Questura can begin a formal investigation the US Embassy has brought in its own people, FBI Agents who want the case closed down as quickly and discreetly as possible.
But Costa is determined to find out why the enquiry is so sensitive - and as the FBI grudgingly admits that this corpse is not the first, the mutilations of the woman's body point to Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man - and to a conspiracy so sinister and buried so deep, that only two people know its true, crazed meaning.
Book 4
Things are looking up for Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni - their humiliating exile in Venice is nearly at an end, and their long-awaited holiday is about to begin. So when they are ordered to investigate an apparently open-and-shut case, a fire in a glass foundry that has claimed two lives, all they want is to wrap it up quickly.
However, as they dig more deeply into the insular glass-making region of Murano and the strange Arcangeli family, things don't quite add up. Under pressure from above to finish quickly so that urbane British millionaire Hugo Massiter's property deal can be concluded, events spiral quickly out of control with devastating consequences . . .
When they realise that the only verdict the local police are interested in is accidental death and a speedily closed file, Costa and Peroni find themselves embroiled in a clandestine and dangerous investigation into the shadowy world that lies beneath Venice's sparkling facade - and where the usual rules do not apply.
Book 5
The Seventh Sacrament is the fifth in the Nic Costa series, David Hewson's detective novels of love and death in Italy.
There’s an entire underground city down there . . . houses and temples, entire streets. I talked to a couple of the cavers Leo called in. They hero-worshipped Giorgio. The man had been to places the rest of them could only dream about.
Giorgio Bramante, a Roman archaeology professor, was master of the hidden world beneath the earth – until the day he lost his young son, Alessio, to a group of students intent on re-creating a centuries-old ritual to a long-banished god. His rage knew no bounds and, in a frenzy, he beat one of the students to death.
Released from prison fourteen years later, Giorgio is bent upon a terrifying revenge on all those he blames for the loss of his son. Inspector Leo Falcone, a member of the original investigating team, is one of his targets.
And Nic Costa, watching Falcone move relentlessly into the man’s merciless grip, realizes the answer must lie in solving a cold case that, like the forgotten Alessio Bramante, has long been regarded as dead and buried for good.
Book 6
The Garden of Evil is the sixth in the Nic Costa series, David Hewson's detective novels of love and death in the Eternal City.
The picture possessed a frightful beauty, one which burned so brightly that, once witnessed, could never be unseen . . . Even the presence of two corpses, one clearly murdered, the other dead through strange and suspicious circumstances, did nothing to distract their attention from the canvas . . .
In a hidden studio in an area of Rome where the Vatican liked to keep an eye on the city’s prostitutes, an art expert from the Louvre is found dead in front of one of the most beautiful paintings that Nic Costa has ever seen – an unknown Caravaggio masterpiece.
But before long tragedy will strike Nic far closer to home. The main suspect’s identity is known, but he remains untouchable – protected in his grand palazzo by a fleet of lawyers and a sinister cult known as the Ekstasists.
If Costa and his team can crack the reasons for the cult’s existence, he may well stand a chance of nailing the double-killer. But the mystery will take him right back to Caravaggio himself and the reasons he had to flee Rome all those centuries before . . .
Book 7
Allan Prime's eyes were as large as any man's Peroni had ever seen. He looked ready to die of fright, even before the bright, shining spear with the blood-soaked tip reached his head . . .
The death mask of the poet Dante is to be exhibited at the premiere of a controversial film, Inferno, based on his epic work. But at the grand unveiling this priceless artefact is replaced by a macabre death mask of the film's star, Allen Prime. And minutes later, the leading actress, Maggie Flavier, is threatened before her attacker is shot.
After footage of Prime's murder is shown over the internet, the Carabinieri are determined to take over the investigation, certain that a crazed Dante fan is behind the killing. Nic Costa and his team follow the movie to its next showing in San Francisco, to safeguard the remaining items and hoping to recover the stolen death mask.
However, in California the mystery deepens, with confusing new clues about the deaths in Rome. With the Carabinieri and local authorities distracted by false leads, can Costa protect Maggie, find the truth and stop the killer - all before life imitates art?
Book 8
The Blue Demon is the eighth in the Nic Costa series, David Hewson's detective novels of love and death in the Eternal City.
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 . . .
Book 10
Detective Nic Costa finds himself a stranger in a strange land when he's sent to infiltrate the mob in a remote part of southern Italy.
Roman police detective Nic Costa has been sent undercover to Italy's beautiful, remote Calabrian coast to bring in the head of the feared mob, the 'Ndrangheta, who has offered to turn state witness for reasons of his own.
Hoping to reel in the biggest prize the state police have seen in years, the infamous Butcher of Palermo, Costa and his team are aware the stakes are high. But the constant deception is taking its toll. Out of their depth in a lawless part of Italy where they are the outcasts, not the men in the hills, with their shotguns and rough justice, the detectives find themselves pitched as much against one another as the mob. As the tension rises, it's clear the operation is not going to plan. Is Nic Costa getting too close to the enemy for comfort - and is there a traitor among them .?
Stefano's left arm, the one holding the weapon, swept the table, swept everything on it . . . She was quiet, waiting, which was, his eyes seemed to say, what he wanted. Then Stefano lifted up the bag to the height of the desk, turned it upside down, let the contents fall on the table and said, 'The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.'
Whilst Sara Farnese pours over ancient texts in the silent Vatican reading room, a brutal murder is taking place in a nearby church. Then suddenly a crazed man enters the Vatican carrying a bloodied bag. He walks up to Sara's desk. He has something he would like her to see . . .
Soon Sara is inextricably linked to a series of horrific and cunning murders, each one representative of the death of a martyr of the Church. Into this climate enter Detectives Costa and Rossi, enlisted to track down the killer, and to protect Sara from the horrors he is capable of. It seems that at any time she could be the next chosen sacrifice . . .
David Hewson's Rome is dark and tantalizing, seductive and dangerous, a place where present-day crimes ring with the echoes of history' Tess Gerritsen, author of The Killing Place
When British academic Malise Gabriel falls to his death from a Rome apartment, detective Nic Costa rapidly comes to realize that there is much more to the accident than he had first thought. It also becomes apparent that Malise's family - mysterious and tragic daughter Mina, stoic wife Cecilia and troubled son Robert - may be keeping vital information hidden.
Nic becomes obsessed with the case, and is especially intrigued by Mina's story which seems to be linked with the sixteenth century-legend of a young Italian noblewoman, Beatrice Cenci.
As the investigation deepens, Rome's dark and seedy side is uncovered, revealing a web of deceit, treachery and corruption. Costa realizes that the key to the truth lies with the Gabriels. Why are they so unwilling to co-operate, and who, or what, is the reason for their silence?
