The Garden of Evil - Softcover

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 even more terribly as his young wife is brutally killed by the suspect Costa is pursuing. The man'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 his wife's killer. But the mystery will take him right back to Caravaggio himself and the reasons he had to flee Rome, all those centuries before . . .

David Hewson was born in Yorkshire in 1953. He worked as staff writer on The Times from 1978, and has written seven novels, as well as a number of travel books. He is now a weekly columnist for the Sunday Times. This is the sixth novel in his Italian crime series featuring Detective Nic Costa. The author lives in Kent. www.davidhewson.com