David Hewson

Lucifer's Shadow

JACKET NOTES:  Venice 1733: young Lorenzo Scacchi has just arrived in the city to work for his uncle at the renowned printing press of Ca' Scacchi. Awed by Venice's splendour, Lorenzo discovers a world of possibilities he has never before dreamed of. But he finds a darker side too. Ordered by his uncle to chaperone a beautiful and gifted violinist who cannot openly reveal her identity, Lorenzo is drawn into a dangerous game of deception, with horrifying consequences.
More than 250 years later, a young Englishman, Daniel Forster, comes to Venice for a summer job and is immediately seduced by the city's beauty and exoticism. Cataloguing a library in the Ca' Scacchi, Daniel discovers the manuscript of an anonymous eighteenth-century concerto. Soon he has become involved in an elaborate scam, leading to a vertiginous spiral of criminal conspiracy and erotic pursuit.
David Hewson brilliantly interweaves two stories of intrigue and corruption, set centuries apart, and eventually draws them together in a stunning double-twist ending. Complex, beautiful, suspenseful, ‘Lucifer’s Shadow’ is Hewson's most tantalising and rewarding novel yet.  (©HarperCollins Publishers)

AUTHOR'S COMMENTS:  When Daniel Forster, a young Englishman, arrives in Venice for a summer job, he soon finds that the city's glittering facade masks a much darker reality. Cataloguing a library of old manuscripts, Daniel discovers a lost musical masterpiece. Slowly he is drawn into a web of dramatic pursuits spanning three centuries, from the Venice of Vivaldi and Rousseau to the present day.

A story of love, music and temptation that joins two different eras Lucifer's Shadow is a unique blend of historical drama and contemporary crime, set around famous locations such as 'Vivaldi's church', La Pieta, and some of Venice's lesser-known sights.
(© David Hewson)