DEATH IN THE CITY OF BRIDGES

A New York City detective races against time to stop a terrorist attack in Venice, Italy, in Ceron’s thriller.

Although this assured thriller is the author’s first full-length novel, he introduced its protagonist Miles in a previous novella, Death of the Saltwater Blonde (2022). Miles Jordan—“Detective First Grade New York Police Department, FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Officer, and Jamal’s Big & Tall Gold Star Customer”—is in Venice as part of a counterterrorism force partnering with the Italian military police. The mission: use captured sleeper agent Aarzam El-Hashem as bait to catch the elusive terrorist known as the Scorpion, assumed to be targeting the Israeli prime minister during the latter’s visit to the city in a few days. The task force’s plans go awry, and the arrogant, ambitious commander of the Venice Carabinieri, Col. Giuseppe Marino, blames Miles. However, the Scorpion sees Miles’ persistence and tendency to think outside the box as the real threats to him. Miles, who is Black, is about to be removed from the case by the American special agent in charge, a racist, “hardline good ol’ boy”; however, a clandestine meeting with a CIA operative opens new lines of inquiry and buys him more time. Ceron’s fast-paced, multilayered plot encompasses a meeting at the Roman Catholic Church archdiocese with an outspoken anti-Islam cardinal, a disturbing encounter with the leader of a shadowy organization of terrorist Catholic fanatics, and even a possible mole within the Carabinieri. The villains are a bit shallowly developed, but this is mitigated by the novel’s overall emotional resonance, particularly in the poignant tale of desperate father Nabeel Haddad, who unknowingly gets caught up in the lethal plot, and Miles’ burgeoning relationship with the haunted, Somalia-born Kamaria Uba of the Carabinieri.

A suspenseful crime story with deft plotting and a resourceful, well-developed protagonist.