It was a warm, golden evening in Rome—a night filled with anticipation. A legendary director was premiering his new film version of Dante’s Inferno . From around the world, celebrities gathered at the Villa Borghese as the paparazzi thronged among them. But within moments the event was in chaos. A man was dead. The film’s star was missing—and a priceless relic had vanished. In David Hewson’s masterful new novel of suspense, Detective Nic Costa, numb from the recent death of his wife, finds himself and his fellow detectives drawn into a strange and terrifying limbo—the first of Dante’s nine circles of Hell. While Dante had Beatrice as his guide, Nic Costa has an enigmatic beauty of his own: a bored American film actress named Maggie Flavier who decides that Costa, and no one else, is suited for the job of protecting her from the danger surrounding the film. As the premiere shifts locations—from Rome to San Francisco—Costa leaves Europe for the first time in his life, and is pulled from his grief and ambivalence by Maggie Flavier and the city by the bay. Fortunately his fellow detectives are under no such spell. Charged with protecting a trove of rare Italian artworks and artifacts, they are also joining the hunt for a killer who has struck twice again, leaving behind a tableau of clues that range from Dante’s deadly cycle of numbers to the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Now, with Maggie herself in danger, Nic must throw off the fog of wonder and infatuation he feels in the presence of this beautiful woman in all her guises. But it may already be too late. As evidence points to connections deep within the Italian Mafia, and the Roman policemen do battle with a celluloid culture they cannot quite comprehend, a killer’s chilling plot is closing in around them—guided by a poet’s medieval vision of sin and punishment, planned with a modern genius for revenge…. It was to have been the triumphant swan song for a revered Italian film director—the premiere in Rome of his long-awaited movie version of Dante’s Inferno. But before the lights go down, chaos reigns: a man is dead, the film’s star has disappeared, and a priceless relic, Dante’s death mask, has been stolen. The trail leads to San Francisco, where Rome police detective Nic Costa, along with partner Gianni Peroni and their boss, Leo Falcone, are part of a team charged with ensuring the safety of other relics that will be part of an exhibit at Golden Gate Park set to open in tandem with the rescheduled premiere. But, of course, Hewson’s three maverick detectives want to get involved in the murder investigation itself, technically the province of their institutional rivals, the Carabiniere, and soon enough they are end-running around not only their Italian counterparts but also the San Francisco police. Hewson is a master at convoluted, many-tentacled plots that weave their way through history and back to the present, but this time he doubles the stakes: we start with Dante and the iconography of his Inferno and wind up reliving the plot of Hitchcock’s Vertigo. That’s a lot ground to cover in one novel—perhaps too much—but from scene to scene, Hewson never loses the reader’s attention, and for fans of this outstanding series, the latest chapter in the interlocked lives of Costa and friends, while overstuffed, is as delicious as ever. --Bill Ott "The return of Nic Costa is a true cause for celebration! A literate, page-turning tale that finds our hero—one of the most appealing in crime fiction—zipping between two of the most iconic cities in the world: Rome and San Francisco. Hewson is a daunting talent—a writer who is a master stylist, who respects his audience's intelligence, and who effortlessly keeps the thrills coming a mile a minute."–Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author "One of my all-time favorite fictional detectives is David Hewson's Nic Costa, and Dante's Numbers brings Nic for the first time to American shores. From the opening scene of murder and mayhem at a movie premiere to the final, mind-blowing surprise, Dante's Numbers is an elegant, clever, and terrifying tale of intrigue and murder involving Dante's first circle of Hell and Hitchcock's classic film Vertigo. An outstanding novel."—Douglas Preston, author of The Monster of Florence and Blasphemy . "David Hewson is one of the finest thriller writers working today. A born stylist. Dante's Numbers is politically wise, multi-dimensional, and psychologically intuitive. Action braids suspense on nearly every page, creating a reader's delight from beginning to end. A superb effort by a master storyteller. The rest of the world already knows how good David is. Now, it's time America find out." —Steve Berry " Dante's Numbers is action-packed suspense at its smartest and most gripping. Transplanting Nic Costa and his fellow Italian detectives to the dizzying world of Hitchock's 'Vertigo' is a master stroke from a brilliant author. It's impossible not to be swept up in the mem