THE TASTE OF DATURA

An English-speaking man living in Italy runs into trouble after purchasing priceless jewelry in Petruzziello’s thriller.

The story begins in Cairo, where streetwise former hotel bartender Nick Terenzi is desperate to get rid of a bracelet. Through a series of brisk, engrossing chapters, the novel backtracks to explain how Terenzi has found himself in an increasingly dangerous predicament. Months prior, his spontaneous purchase of a unique gold-link bracelet from a Roman antique shop spurs a host of crooks to come out of the woodwork. Among them is shifty underground black-market art broker Gaetano Pentolino, who’s prepared to offer a high price for the jewelry before auctioning it off to mysterious Greek and Egyptian buyers. Terenzi ignores the broker’s warnings not to involve anyone else and asks a florist named Lavinia, with whom he’d had a one-night stand days before, to decipher the bracelet’s etchings. She identifies the floral image as a datura blossom from a plant in the nightshade family—a bad omen, to be sure. Adding to the mystery is Laura, a psychic who meets Terenzi by chance after seeing a vision that explains the bracelet’s origins and purpose. After a bounty is put on the coveted jewelry, it becomes the hottest commodity in Europe, and both Terenzi and the psychic must flee for their lives. As with his previous novels, Petruzziello sets this one in Italy, and he effectively gets across the vibrant, alluring ancient Mediterranean culture and the atmosphere of Naples, where the “summer heat…hits you like a strong bear hug.” A small but potent cast of characters livens things up, as does the twisty plot, which ratchets up the tension as the story goes on. It’s a tale of an ancient artifact to die for that delivers a riveting ending.

A thrilling mystery that combines Italian history and international intrigue.