First in the police procedural series, this “plot [is] replete with shocks . . . Her vivid portrayal of Naples, in its glory and its gloom, is unforgettable” (Richmond Times-Dispatch).
When a college student is found murdered in the catacombs beneath a monastery, Capt. Natalia Monte of the Carabinieri is assigned to investigate. Could the killer be a professor the student was sleeping with? A blind monk who loved her? Or a member of the brutal criminal organization known as the Camorra? As Monte pursues her investigation, the crime families of Naples go to war over garbage-hauling contracts, and across the city heaps of trash pile up, uncollected. When one of Monte’s childhood friends is caught up in the violence, her loyalties are tested, and each move she makes threatens her own life and the lives of those she loves.
