"The Villa of Mysteries", the second novel in the Italian crime series set in Rome, features Caravaggio-loving Detective Nic Costa. In this title, when a young woman turns up dead in a peat bog, a maverick pathologist thinks she's the victim of an ancient Roman ritual. But she's wrong.
Back in Rome after their dramatic adventures in Venice, Costa, Peroni and Leo Falcone are rebuilding their lives. But they team up once again when faced with the sudden appearance of fresh bloodstains on a missing young boy's T-shirt in a small museum exhibit displaying supposed evidence of communication from souls in Purgatory. Soon they find themselves embroiled in a mystery involving both the ancient cult of Mithras and a sinister ossuary, the House of Bones.
For the first time in decades The Eternal City is paralysed by a blizzard. And a gruesome discovery is made in the Pantheon - one of Rome's most ancient and revered architectural treasures. Covered by softly falling snow is the body of a young woman - her back horribly mutilated...But before Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni of the Questura can begin a formal investigation the US Embassy has brought in its own people, FBI Agents who want the case closed down as quickly and discreetly as possible.
Ex-cop Bierce has been in prison for over twenty years following his conviction for the murders of his wife and son. He has no memory of the tragedy and has never been able to say with certainty that he didn't do it - except he cannot imagine why on earth he would have killed his beloved family. Unexpectedly released moments before his execution, he teams up with the beautiful, feisty, half-Chinese Alice Loong, who is seeking answers to her own troubled past and the death of her mother on that same day in 1983.
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 far closer to home. The main suspect'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.
