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The Blue Demon

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About this listen

Twenty years ago, a mysterious group called the Blue Demon committed a series of bizarre and ritualistic crimes evoking the legacy of the lost race of the Etruscans, and leaving in their wake a group of dead students, a murdered couple, a cryptic message and a kidnapped child.

Now, the leaders of the G8 are descending on Rome for a summit at the Quirinale Palace. But when a politician is found ritually murdered, seemingly by a strange young man dressed as an Etruscan god, detective Nic Costa suspects that the old case was never really solved. The Blue Demon appear to have returned - and planning, under the leadership of the fanatical Andrea Petrakis, to unleash a devastating sequence of attacks on the city. As Costa and his team start to dig deeper into the past, they find that there are still too many unanswered questions – and much more to the history of the Blue Demon than anyone wants to admit.

©2010 David Hewson (P)2010 WF Howes Ltd Crime Thrillers International Mystery & Crime Mystery Police Procedural Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Thriller Crime Rome
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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Not sure. I found it hard to get into it as the opening makes it seem as though it is going to a bit mystical. It does take a long time to settle down into what it is, which is a crime novel with a bit of terrorism and a lot of Italian politics. The unfamiliar political background makes it hard going at times but it is worth persevering.

My main criticism is that the main policeman, the Nic Costa of the headline, is a bit lacklustre and the others in the team are not very vivid either. This may be because this is one of a series and the character development has been done in earlier books but it is a fault as the book should probably be able to stand in its own.

I do not feel drawn enough to the characters or the setting to rush to buy others in the series.

Have you listened to any of Saul Reichlin’s other performances? How does this one compare?

I haven't heard him before but would be happy to listen to him again.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?


Not a moment so much as a character. The man the police are after is very vividly drawn and I found his story moving despite the horrific nature of his actions.

Worth persevering

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I did not enjoy this narrator's reading of this book at all. Could not finish

wrong voice

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I did enjoy this book , it does pick up a pace but I still felt it was a bit laborious at parts. I always find this a bit with David Hewson's books but I keep coming back for more so he must be doing something right!

Enjoyable enough

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I have enjoyed David Hewson's previous books in his Rome Series, of which this is the eighth. His hall-mark style is to link a modern police investigation to some historical event, old document or work of art. In this story it's a mythological being, the Blue Demon, from the time of the Etruscans. All the familiar characters are in on the investigation: Nick Costa, Peroni, Theresa Lupo, Falconi, et al. I found this a complicated tale to keep track of as it involved so many threads: political intrigue and corruption, terrorist cells, sleeper operatives from the cold war era, the various mafia-type organizations and clues from the Estruscan era and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. There was more similarity to Frederick Forsyth's style of thriller than other books in the Rome series. By the end of the book I was beginning to think that the author had stretched credibility even further from reality than usual, however, he tacked on a short history of the shenanigans and corruption in the recent Italian political arena which reminded me that it wasn't so preposterous after all.
As usual Saul Reichlin does a magnificent job in bringing the characters to life.

Complicated story of political intrigue

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Good book found it hard to follow who all the different characters were but still a good story well read

good

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