Share for friends:

Read The Lizard's Bite (2007)

The Lizard's Bite (2007)

Online Book

Author
Genre
Series
Rating
3.8 of 5 Votes: 2
Your rating
ISBN
0440243009 (ISBN13: 9780440243007)
Language
English
Publisher
dell

The Lizard's Bite (2007) - Plot & Excerpts

Nic Costa series, #4If you haven't read the previous books in the series, stop here. If you have, you'll remember that at the end of the last one (The Sacred Cut), the main characters, Nic Costa, Gianni Peroni and their boss Leo Falcone, have been exiled to Venice for awhile for a slight matter of insubordination. While there, they were treated as outsiders, pretty much laying low, not getting involved in too much crime business. They are on the eve of some leave, and their friends from Rome have come to visit, when murder strikes. The scene is the Isola del Arcangeli, a glass factory that has not done well for the Arcangelo family lately, keeping them in constant debt. One of the Arcangelos is found dead, burned to a crisp, along with his wife. Our three police friends are told that they must come up with a satisfactory conclusion to the murder within a week; for it is then that English businessman (and superbly shady character) Hugo Massiter is going to be buying the island on which sits the factory, and everyone higher up it seems does not want any glitch in the sale. They have their minds made up that Uriel Arcangelo killed his wife and then himself...and need the Roman policemen's seal of satisfaction on the investigation in case the murder ever comes under scrutiny. But the three are not so easily put off...and the investigation leads to a wonderful plot twist that I didn't see coming. A very fun story, and it will appeal to readers who want a mystery that is intellectual and a definite cut above what's out on the shelves today. Recommended, highly, but do read the books in order.read: 1/02/2007

The next in the Nic Costa series, the detectives Costa and Peroni along with their boss Falcone are 'exiled' in Venice following their disregard for following the rules in the Sacred Cut.In Venice they are joined by girlfriends, Emily Deacon and Teresa Lupo for holiday that is postponed when a glass factory furnace overheats and kills two people. The pair are husband and wife, the wife is found to be pregnant and her husband is medically impotent. Compounding matters, the family is near bankrupt and a buyer is a wealthy Englishmen who deals in both legal and illegal ventures.I had also taken out Hewson's Lucifer's Shadow, which was not in the Costa series, but as it turns out Lucifer's Shadow is a pre-story to The Lizard's Bite. I'd suggest reading Lucifer's Shadow first even though it does not feature the detectives, it does the villian and gives context to the Lizard's Bite.I've enjoyed these books but found them tough to get into during the first third before they pick up and really grab you.

What do You think about The Lizard's Bite (2007)?

THE LIZARD’S BITE (Pol. Proc.-Ensemble-Venice-Cont) – GHewson, David – 4th in seriesDell Suspense, 2006, US Paperback – ISBN: 9780440243007First Sentence: In the shifting darkness of the vessel’s bowels, low over the undulating black water, the animal waited, trembling.*** Roman police officers Nick Costa and Gianni Peroni think they are going to get some time off with their girlfriends, former FBI agent Emily Deacon and pathologist Teresa Lupo. But things change when their boss, Leo Falcone shows up and the three of them are told they are to investigate the deaths of a Moreno glass worker and his wife. But the pressure is on as wealthy Englishman, Hugo Massiter is about to buy the island currently owned by the victim’s family. The three policemen are told to investigate the deaths quickly and verify the man killed his wife and then died of spontaneous combustion. With the help of their girlfriends, the three policemen finds things are not as simple as hoped.*** As a big Donna Leon fan, this was an interesting perspective of Roman policemen working in Venice. Many of the things Leon’s Insp. Brunelli loves about Venice, these detectives hate. However, the corruption of some of the Italian police remains a consistent theme. There are a lot of interesting characters, but the story was short on character development. It was really the twists and turns along the way that kept me reading.
—LJ

In David Hewson's The Lizard Bite, the 4th installment in the Nic Costa series, Nic and the rest of his team in the Carabineri tackled another hard core mystery. The Arcangelo family lived on their private island in a decaying palazzo and making glass in their factory. But now the world comes to them when there's a vaporetti of police embarked on their private property, when two members of their family died in a foundry fire. For Nic Costa and her partner, they were on a special assignment and knew that two members of that family were murdered. A predatory tEnglishman was a suspect as the family of the women were persons of interest, too. As they want the police to go away, when they can't, when a matter of lies, death and desire turns murderously on one of them.
—Kristen

Has the most impressive story and its characters are believable and livable.The reason the two venitien cops and their wives are involved, its rather a life style for them, and is because they're leading in investigations, it wasn’t to get involved with the family, which nearly seemed to become the point. But where as Falcone takes a sudden infatuation for the miss Arcangeli during the investigation, and falls for her. Supposing to be a old family, who once had wealth, now living remotely on their own island, and with their own buisness of shaping glass figurines for a living. Massiter is a project-a-holic of quailty type, while bearing a mark of indifference, his difference is of a cover-up getting slowly exposed of his personal involvement, maybe blame. He appears all cool headed about his work though, meanwhile, and takes a chance now and then to achieve what he’s believing in.
—Arthur

Write Review

(Review will shown on site after approval)

Read books by author David Hewson

Read books in series Nic Costa

Read books in category Fiction