The Garden of Evil

This is a further instalment in the lives and work of policeman Costa and colleagues in David Hewson's Rome series. The author's fertile imagination, yet again, conjures up an extraordinary story that mixes police detection, forensic science, religion and Italian art that carries one along wanting to know what happens next in this long recording. The book stands alone as a great story, but you'll get more out of it if you've listened to the earlier books in this series and thus know some of the background to the main characters, who are brought wonderfully to life by Saul Reichlin's outstanding performance in reading the text. Performance being the operative word as he doesn't just read the words: he, using a full range of voices, dramatizes the book as if it's almost a audio play.
As a bonus you get to learn quite a bit about the Caravaggio and Italian art: sequences of discourse that relieves some of the tension created by the furious pace of other parts of the book.
Recommended.

this book was very interesting. Took a little while to get into but then magic.

Would give it 5 stars but Greg Iles sequel to this book is even better so have reserved 5 stars for that one.

An ingenious, fascinating plot expressed in a literate, fast-paced style.

I enjoy the Rome series from David Hewson and this is one of the best in my view. A good story line which holds the interest very well. David Hewson weaves a good plot and captures the atmosphere of Rome within the story. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and must give credit to Saul Reichlin for a very smooth narration.