<img class="alignright size-full wp-image-6616" title="The Fallen Angel" src="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/01/fallen-angel-uk-small1.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="362" />The ninth novel in the Costa series will be out a month today in the UK, and in the US in April. So it seems about time I put up some information about it. <a title="The Fallen Angel" href="http://davidhewson.com/books/the-nic-costa-series/the-fallen-angel/">You can find a lot on its own page here</a> including a video about the book's background, a quote from the lovely Tess Gerritsen and some of the research photos I took in Rome during a long winter's research.

As usual it's not much like the book that went before. <em>The Blue Demon</em> was a political thriller, one that sets up a sequel (which I hope one day to write). This is a very different story, a close and personal one set in Rome during the dog days of August. It brings Costa and crew into contact with a very unusual English family living in impoverished exile.

<a href="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/01/cenci1.jpeg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-6636" title="Cenci" src="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2011/01/cenci1.jpeg?w=228" alt="" width="228" height="300" /></a>Most of the narrative takes place in the Roman ghetto, a small and little-visited area in the centre. It was here, at the end of the sixteenth century, that a real-life tragedy occurred in the household of the Cenci, one of the grand, land-owning families of the time. The story of <a class="zem_slink" title="Beatrice Cenci" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Cenci">Beatrice Cenci</a> is a remarkable one in its own right, and little known outside Italy. It was the inspiration for this tale, which also includes the lovely portrait by Guido Reni in the Barberini, right. Though as is so often the case with the Beatrice Cenci legend, whether it really is her must be open to doubt.

The book also brings back a character from an earlier story, one I wanted to meet again. She's Agata Graziano, who appeared in <em>The Garden of Evil</em> as a rather argumentative nun with specialist knowledge of Caravaggio.

Next year's book will be called <em>The Plague Doctor</em>, set entirely in Venice during the Carnival, and will be a slight departure in that only one of my recurring characters appears, Teresa Lupo. She's been nagging for a book of her own for a while and she's a hard woman to refuse.

But for now you have the full crew -- Costa, Teresa, Peroni and Falcone, with Agata at their side, tackling a very curious mystery in a very small and interesting part of Rome. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.