The Savage Shore

by David Hewson

Overview

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 …?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780727829665
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	05/31/2019
Series:	A Nic Costa Mystery , #10
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	544
Product dimensions:	5.55(w) x 8.74(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Hewson is a former journalist with The Times, The Sunday Times and the Independent. He is the author of more than twenty-five novels including his Rome-based Nic Costa series which has been published in fifteen languages. He has also written three acclaimed adaptations of the Danish TV series, The Killing. He lives near Canterbury in Kent

Editorial Reviews

09/10/2018
Hewson’s tedious 10th Nic Costa thriller (after 2011’s Fallen Angel) transports the police detective and his team from Rome to Calabria, the home of a network of gangsters known as the ’Ndrangheta. Nic and his crew must find and arrest a “mysterious figure in the hierarchy of the ’Ndrangheta, who would turn pentito, state witness, and take down any number of crooks and fellow travelers.” In addition, he promises to turn in “the head of the combined Sicilian mobs.” Nic infiltrates the ’Ndrangheta with surprising ease, while his fellow police officers provide backup of sorts. That they talk loudly in a local restaurant about the case while disguised as tourists belies their supposed competence. Long excerpts from a guide book called Calabrian Tales offer fanciful explanations for the development of the ’Ndrangheta and Italy’s other criminal brotherhoods, musings on mythology and paganism, and some potted history. They also slow down the momentum. Readers will hope to see less padding and fewer digressions in Nic’s next outing. Agent: Alice Lutyens, Curtis Brown (U.K.). (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

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.

Choice Magazine

Hewson keeps one guessing, perplexed and horrified. . . Absolutely super.

|Los Angeles Times

Hewson’s style is tight, lean, almost like a film script.

Express

Hewson’s inventiveness never flags.

Sunday Times

Hewson is a daunting talent . . . who effortlessly keeps thrills coming a mile a minute.

Jeffery Deaver

Hewson keeps one guessing, perplexed and horrified. . . Absolutely super.

Los Angeles Times

2018-08-21

Whatever Rome police detective Nic Costa's been doing in the unusually long break since his last outing (The Fallen Angel, 2011), it hasn't prepared him for the ups and downs he faces when he goes undercover with the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta.

The gang leader who prefers to be known as Lo Spettro won't say why he's suddenly willing to give up his family to the Questura. But it's clear that despite his offer, approaching him will be a dangerous proposition. So arrangements are made for Costa to masquerade as Tomasso Leoni, a "minor criminal" from Guelph, Canada. For all his efforts, the deal is still perilous. Although Lo Spettro's daughter, Lucia Bergamotti, is clearly drawn to Maso Leoni, her brother Rocco is suspicious, territorial, and unpleasantly peremptory in his brutality. And the whimsically inscrutable Lo Spettro wants a sign of loyalty from Leoni before he delivers the goods: "You must kill and be seen to kill." The opening flashes forward to 10 days later and presents Leoni executing Leo Falcone and Gianni Peroni, a pair of heavies sent to Reggio to tell Emmanuel Akindele, the Nigerian immigrant who operates the Zanzibar on behalf of the 'Ndrangheta, that he needs to take out an insurance policy on the dive bar, with the first payment due immediately. Could Costa have pulled the plug on even a pair of extortionists with so few reservations? If he did, what are the likely consequences, in and out of the legal system? And is it really true, despite the Bible's assurances to the contrary, that "dead men don't rise"?

The tale floats on a tide of dark threats, double-crosses, abrupt changes of heart, revelations that characters aren't as they seem, and indications that the best-kept secrets aren't secrets at all. Hewson does provide an excellent tour of "Italy's toe," which sounds both savage and strangely appealing.

Kirkus Reviews