The lizard's bite - David Hewson

The Lizard's Bite is the fourth in the Nic Costa series, David Hewson's detective novels of love and death in Italy.

Life was never black and white in Italy . . . Something about the place both disturbed and interested him. Venice reminded him of a bad yet familiar relative, dangerous to know, difficult to let go.

As their exile in Venice draws to a close, Roman detectives Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni are ordered to investigate an apparently open-and-shut case, a fire in a glass foundry that has claimed two lives, so all they want is to wrap it up quickly.

However, as they dig more deeply into the insular glass-making community on Murano and the strange Arcangeli family, things don't quite add up. With increasing pressure from above to finish quickly, events spiral quickly out of control - with devastating consequences . . .