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  • The Sacred Cut

  • The Rome Series: Book 3
  • By: David Hewson
  • Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
  • Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (444 ratings)
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The Sacred Cut cover art

The Sacred Cut

By: David Hewson
Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
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Summary

It's approaching Christmas in Rome and snow is falling in a way that only happens every twenty or thirty years. The city is soon paralyzed by an unseasonal icy grip, and in the dark corners of the Pantheon a grim and mysterious story begins to unfold.

Nic Costa and his partner Gianni Peroni are called to reports of an intruder. Instead they find a woman's naked body, scarred in a geometric pattern. Almost immediately they are met by a team from the FBI determined to take over an investigation into what they claim is a killer murdering American tourists around the world, in ways which link back to the mystical structure of the Pantheon itself.

But one agent, Emily Deacon, has a different story to tell, one that has a tragic personal dimension. Through her and an elusive Iraqi girl Laila, only witness to the death in the Pantheon, Nic Costa is pulled relentlessly into the world of the Iraq war and the shadowy secret agents whose job was to penetrate the regime of Saddam Hussein before the armed forces attacked.

Soon he is aware that there is a conspiracy at the heart of these deaths which runs back to Washington, and the past of Emily Deacon's dead father, a tangle of connections he has to unravel, even if it comes at a considerable personal and professional cost. A madman is loose in the frozen winter landscape of Rome, and as Costa soon realises, he is one the American agents know only too well...

©2005 David Hewson (P)2005 W.F. Howes Ltd.

What listeners say about The Sacred Cut

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Pure enjoyment!

Good fast paced police/spy thriller with excellent delivery by the reader. The characters have depth and are believable, the story intriguing with good well thought out plot. A very enjoyable listen, I would be interested in more from this author and reader.

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58 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Please record more!!

First time had 'read' anything from David Hewson and thought it was excellent - please get more!!! Well plotted with explanations which fit into the flow of conversation and discovery - and a couple of unexpected twists. Most enjoyable.

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29 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book - well read.

Good plot, marvellous setting and great characterisation but what really makes the book come alive is the skill of the narrator. Has made me want to read more David Hewson and listen more to Saul Reichlin.

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28 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

The Odd one out!

Oh dear!
I have to disagree with the previous reviews! This book is nothing but Irritating! I love audiobooks but this is almost unlistenable! WHY?

Ok I find the authors obsession with the smallest detail pointless .. he seems to spend more time describing irrelivants rather than whats going on! its hard to explain but you just get to a point where you just dont care about the colour of the table cloth! Everything is just long winded! why use 100 words when you can waste 543!
Narrator: Saul Reichlin well he's obviously a thespian and i can imagine that he stands in the recording booth legs wide and leaning back with arms wailing around (ala the sketch from black adder!)! He dramatizes everything SO much! infact too much! And his flamboyant use of linguistics means you end up listening to the words and not the meanigs or the story! again tonally its hard to get an image of all the characters is Costa 35 or 65 man mountain or just fat?? Vocal tones are deep or deeper! Boy there must be some very butch italian women!

I've been a fool to myself and both David Hewson books I've taken both narrated by Saul Reichlin I've given up on!
I just can't assosciate with the characters and have zero feelings for them!

again I'm obviously the odd one out!

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Worst impulse buy ever!

I totally agree with Bryan on this one. I got this audiobook on an impulse, I quite like thrillers/espionage/police dramas. Not a lot of them but when they are good I can't resist. So in light of the buzz and the glowing reviews for this book I got it, thinking it would be awesome. I was hugely disapointed, I mean surely its not asking for much when your asking for a plot of some description. Or some characters which are believably, even 2D would have been fine if I could have cared at all about them. I finished the book out of sheer determination alone and most of that was painful, listening to the oh so obvious 'twists', figuring out back at the beginning of the book who it was, what all the 'clever' connections were. Please people don't get this book - two others which are significantly better are A Death in Vienna by Daniel Silva and The Double Eagle by I forget who.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Dissapointing and laboured end to a good book

This book comes in two sections - the first cracking and interesting, draws the reader in. The second half starts out well but the story continues a good hour and a half longer than it needed to and loses all goodwill it had engendered thus far.
Very, very disappointing. No need to spoil a good book like that.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Good story, well read

This is a well-crafted narrative with a bit of a surprise at the end. The story is not as stunningly shocking as the one in the first book in Hewson's Rome series, but it keeps one hooked the whole way. The reader is very good and able to do lots of accents that helps one to keep track of all the different characters.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable

Thhs book is very gripping and I would higily reccomend it. Well worth the reading.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great story

Great story line that captures the listener and gathers them in.

I really enjoyed this, it was nice not to be in the USA, UK or the usual places that seem to attract crime writers. Being in Italy and Rome was refreshing and the story being a mix of crime/spying was well put together, the fact that the setting was Rome made the story even more enjoyable for me.

Clever ending to the story, which was unexpected.

Loved this, will try further novels by this author.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

The Sacred Cut (Disappointing for me too)

I have to agree with Bryan and Hannah's reviews, I thought this book was rather lacking of any believable or tangible plot.

I must admit, I was swayed by the positive reviews on this site to purchase the book and I am glad I didn't pay the full price as I think I would have been put off from any future purchases.

However, I will state that the reader was superb and I would like to listen to other books he has read.

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1 person found this helpful