Blood Curse: The Springtime of Commissario Ricciardi

Ricciardihas visions. He sees and hears the final seconds in the lives of victims ofviolent deaths. It is both a gift and a curse. It has helped him become one ofthe most acute and successful homicide detectives in the Naples police force.But all that horror and suffering has hollowed him out emotionally: He drinksand doesn't sleep. Other than his loyal partner Brigadier Maione he has nofriends.Naples,1931. In a working-class apartment in the Sanita neighborhood, an elderly womanby the name of Carmela Calise has been beaten to death. When Ricciardi andMaione arrive at the scene they start asking the neighbors questions. No onewants to talk, but slowly a few interesting facts slip out. Carmela Calise wasmoonlighting as a fortune-teller and moneylender. In her decrepit apartment, shewould receive clients-among them some of the city's rich and powerful-predicting their futures in such a way as to manipulate and deceive. Ifeconomic ruin lurked in their futures, Calise was happy to help-for a price,of course. She had many enemies: those indebted to her, manipulated by herlies, disappointed by her prophesies, or destroyed by her machinations. Murder suspectsin this atmospheric thriller abound, and Commissario Ricciardi, one of the mostoriginal and intriguing investigators in contemporary crime fiction, will havehis work cut out for him.