DANTE’S NUMBERS
David Hewson
Delacorte Press
Suspense
ISBN: 9780385341486
DANTE’S NUMBERS has already created some stir in certain quarters. It is the latest of David Hewson’s novels concerning Rome police detective Nic Costa, but it transports him to environs far removed from Italy. The controversy that this change of scenery has created obscures the fact that this is the author’s best book to date.
The novel opens in Rome on the eve of the world premiere of a film adaptation of Dante’s INFERNO. The project has not been without controversy, which the director and producer have welcomed for the attendant publicity. All of this attention takes a violent turn, however, when two murders occur. One of the victims is the male lead in the movie, and the bizarre method of his death is broadcast live on the Internet. The website from which the airing of this crime originates has ties to San Francisco, so that the investigation, led by the heavy-handed Carabinieri officers, is transferred there. Costa, Leo Falcone, Gianni Peroni and Teresa Lupo are in tow, due to the fact that Dante’s death mask, on loan with other Dante-related artifacts from San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts, has gone missing. The Rome police are charged with guarding the artifacts while they are being returned to San Francisco, as well as hopefully recovering the missing mask.
Let’s digress for a moment. We have Italian policemen in San Francisco in a mystery written by a British author. It is this change of locale that has given rise to the controversy surrounding DANTE’S NUMBERS. Let me assure you: the setting is perfect. Just as Hewson has demonstrated a native’s familiarity with Rome in his previous Costa novels, so too does he “get” the rhythm and beat of San Francisco without unnecessarily pandering to its more scatological and controversial elements. Rather than setting the story in North Beach, for example, he places his police officers in the Cow Hollow area. This makes sense, given the location of the Palace of Fine Arts, but it is also challenging to make it interesting. Hewson meets that challenge, and then some. Other elements such as the weather, the manner in which distances can be so deceiving, and one of San Francisco’s most under-appreciated treasures --- the Mission Dolores --- are also given proper due.
San Francisco though is primarily a place of the heart, and indeed neither Falcone nor Costa is immune. Still emotionally reeling from the murder of his wife, Costa feels the faint stirrings of attraction for Maggie Flavier. Cast as Dante’s Beatrice in INFERNO, Flavier first attracts Costa’s eye in Rome. Given that she is a resident of San Francisco, their paths continue to cross. It is Costa’s unwillingness to let go of the murder investigation (and Falcone’s half-hearted attempt to reign him in) that sends him along San Francisco’s less known and less traveled roads. When Flavier herself becomes the target of a poison attack and additional murders occur, Costa continues in earnest, little knowing how close he and Maggie are to the heart of the motivation of all that has occurred.
DANTE’S NUMBERS is arguably the most accessible of Hewson’s works, which is not to say that the plot is necessarily a simple one. Nor does Hewson fail to inform while entertaining. Indeed, the ins and outs of film financing, motion picture history, the differences between a producer and a director, and a little-known but centuries-old financial version of the game of “chicken” are all explored here, against the backdrop of one of the world’s most interesting cities and, of course, the dip and swirl of romantic relationships. All of this is done within the context of an elaborate murder mystery, and exquisitely so. For what more could one reasonably ask?
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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