As the seventh novel in David Hewson’s mystery series featuring Nic Costa, DANTE’S NUMBERS is the first to take its protagonist away from his native Rome. But that alone is not why this book is so uneven and frustrating.
Costa and his associates are assembled at the Villa Borghese in Rome for the premiere of a new and highly anticipated movie adaptation of Dante’s INFERNO. But Costa and the other members of the state police are not there for security — that’s the responsibility of the armed and uniformed Carabinieri. Instead, Costa and his fellow officers are there to guard a display of rare artifacts related to THE DIVINE COMEDY and Dante Alighieri.
But suddenly, chaos erupts. A man posing as one of the Carabinieri threatens the film’s lead actress and is shot dead. Immediately thereafter, a featured portion of the premiere’s promotional display, Dante’s death mask, is discovered missing. And so is the film’s star, actor Allan Prime. Soon, Prime’s image appears on an illegally uploaded webcast showing his impending murder. The police fail to prevent the murder, but when they arrive at the scene, they discover inscriptions from Dante describing the number of the First Circle of Hell.
But, of course, the show must go on. So the site of the premiere is moved to San Francisco, and Costa and company follow the artifacts to the new location while struggling with the previous two deaths. Then the threats against those who made the movie begin again. More deaths are revealed. And Costa and his Italian cohorts bump heads with the San Francisco Police Department as they try to determine of the murders are the work of an offended admirer of Dante’s classic work, or an elaborate publicity stunt gone horribly wrong, or somehow connected to the illegal underworld financing of the movie. In the meantime, it appears that the whole situation is somehow linked to Alfred Hitchcock’s VERTIGO and its San Francisco locations.
Hewson can’t seem to make up his mind on the tone of this story. Episodes featuring an Italian pathologist and a quirky pair of San Francisco twin brothers are cozy-cute. While the power struggle between the Roman and San Francisco law enforcement authorities is played for laughs, scenes of Costa and his emotional attachment to the movie’s female lead are distant and somewhat dark. And the scenes of the murders are violent and graphic. These shifts in tone bump against each other throughout the entire novel, almost giving the impression of more than one author at work here.
Then there are long, odd passages where the characters lecture on topics ranging from the on-paper-only wealth of arrogant young dot-com inventors; the ambiguous moralities and obsessions of filmmakers; reality in life vs. reality as presented in the movies; and, oh yes, the common themes shared by both Hitchcock and Dante.
Underneath all this confusion and meandering is a fairly intriguing story of greed, with a side order of psychotic revenge. But it takes so damned long to get there that it’s a challenge to maintain interest. And the way Hewson keeps his characters at arm’s length, including Costa, only makes matters worse.
Readers interested in this otherwise stylish and entertaining series would do far better with any of its earlier titles. And Hewson, as Chili Palmer in Elmore Leonard’s GET SHORTY observed, should stay home and leave moviemaking to those who know what they’re doing. —Alan Cranis
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE GARDEN OF EVIL by David Hewson
• THE LIZARD’S BITE by David Hewson
• THE SACRED CUT by David Hewson
