The Lizards Bite David Hewson by David Hewson 9780440336426, 0440336422 instant download after payment.

On an August night on a small island near Venice, a fire explodes in a glassmaking shop. When help arrives, two people are dead, a rich Englishman is implicated, and investigators from Rome are assigned a case no one wants them to solve....In this spellbinding new novel featuring Detective Nic Costa, author David Hewson weaves together the rich fabric of Europe’s most beguiling city with a riveting tale of passion, corruption, and the poisonous bite of betrayal.

On their private island, the Arcangelo family defy the world: living in a decaying palazzo, making glass in a terrifying, archaic furnace, watching their absurd exhibition hall sink into disrepair. But now the world is coming to their dying outpost in a crumbling corner of a Venice that tourists never see. Police boats and vaporetti bring investigators, curiosity seekers, and one man who plans to own the property himself. With two family members consumed by the foundry fire, both mystery and opportunity have been bared to the bone.

On special assignment from Rome, Detective Nic Costa, along with his partner, his boss, and a dogged pathologist named Teresa Lupo, is getting in the way of progress, Venetian-style. They know that Uriel Arcangelo and his wife were murdered. They know that a predatory Englishman must be a suspect, as is the family of the murdered woman. And while everyone wants the Roman cops to give up and go home, they can’t–because a matter of desire, death, and lies has just turned murderously on one of them....

A tale as bewitching as its lush backdrop, The Lizard’s Bite is an astounding alchemy of superb writing, vibrant atmosphere, and sheer, gripping suspense.

From the Hardcover edition.

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 di Archangeli 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. (Nov.)
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At the end of Hewson's superb Sacred Cut (2005), Roman cops Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni, along with their maverick boss, Leo Falcone, were all in jeopardy, having both outfoxed and offended the Eternal City's leading powerbrokers. Now exiled to Venice, Costa and Peroni find themselves with another hot-potato case on their hands. After being reunited with Falcone, the pair is offered a chance to return to Rome if they will rubber stamp a murder investigation on the island of Murano, where a glassmaker apparently has killed his wife and then died himself when the furnace he was tending exploded. Naturally, Costa and Peroni smell a fix and can't resist following the scent. The setup here stretches credulity a bit--Why ask three notorious rule breakers to go through the motions?--but Hewson takes the story well beyond its genre-bound premise, mixing Venetian ambience ("the lethargic melancholy of the lagoon") and the lore of glassmaking with a multifaceted examination of his characters' (especially Falcone's) dark sides. A richly ambiguous finale only adds to the pleasure. Bill Ott
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