The first in a trilogy of Italian thrillers featuring Commissioner Teresa Battaglia. Set in a quiet village surrounded by the imposing Italian Alps, a series of violent assaults take place. Police inspector and profiler Teresa Battaglia is called in when the first body is found, a naked man whose face has been disfigured and eyes gouged out. Soon more victims are discovered – all horrifically mutilated – and when a new-born baby is kidnapped, Teresa’s investigation becomes a race against the clock.
Teresa is a hugely likable character, think of an Italian Vera. She has fantastic taste in music liking Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Jeff Buckley. She lives alone with her photographs and like all great police detectives she has her issues. She is also fighting a battle against her own body, weighed down by age and diabetes, and her mind, once invincible and now slowly gnawing away at her memory causing her stress and frustration.
Set in the Italian Friuli region, near the border with Austria, the novel focuses on a remote mountain community torn apart by a series of gruesome crimes. As Commissioner Battaglia investigates, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary case: there are secrets buried deep in those mountains, legends and stories from a dark and dangerous past. As Teresa inches closer to the truth, she has to face her own personal demons, and the possibility that her body and mind might fail her before the chase is over.
This is a wonderfully descriptive thriller, I really liked it and thought the plot was well thought through. The intrigue was excellent, it kept me wanting to know what was happening and I engaged with Battaglia believing that under that hard skin there is a lovely, warm person aching to get out. The setting of a rural town offers up the complexity that comes with small rural communities keeping strum and not talking about past crimes creating a super backdrop for a series of crimes to be committed.
If you are looking for quirky thriller with an engaging, complex character that’s got a great plot line this is the book for you. And the joy is that there are two more in the series.
Orion/£14.99/9781474609579/Published on February 7 2019
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