Patrick Anderson of the <em>Washington Post</em> devotes his book review today to <em>The Fallen Angel. </em> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/david-hewsons-fallen-angel-compelling-novel-about-how-evil-can-hurt-a-family/2011/04/26/AFwOM2VF_story.html" target="_blank">You can read the full review here.</a>

One extract...

It’s hard to see how the author could have made his dark tale more fascinating, entertaining and yet entirely serious than he has.

As always, Hewson offers many glimpses of Rome. Costa sits “on a low semicircular stone bench midway across the Garibaldi Bridge, listening to the Tiber murmur beneath him like some ancient spirit grumbling about the noise and dirt of the city.” Moments later, he glimpses “the Castel Sant’Angelo illuminated like some squat stone drum left behind by the forgetful children of giants. Rome seemed magical, a fairy-tale city, on a drowsy evening such as this.” Lovers of Rome may savor the Costa novels just for images such as these.

But finally, this is a novel about evil. After I <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-review-philip-kerrs-field-gray/2011/04/18/AFP6RjdE_story.html">reviewed</a> Philip Kerr’s new <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0399157417?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=washpost-books-20&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creativeASIN=0399157417">Bernie Gunther novel</a> recently, a friend told me she wouldn’t read it because she didn’t want to deal with the horrors of World War II. And who can blame her? Kerr and Hewson, two excellent novelists, are both writing about evil but on vastly different scales: one cosmic, the other focused on a single family. Hewson is saying that the evil that destroyed Beatrice Cenci’s family can exist today. Certain details change, but the lust, the greed, the hatred and the basic darkness endure. It’s hard to see how the author could have made his dark tale more fascinating, entertaining and yet entirely serious than he has.

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