Oh, this was just so, so good. Just loved it. Well-written, intelligent and thorough - he clearly knows what he's writing about; interesting characters, page turning plot... this is what thrillers should be. I've actually already read the second in the trilogy, which I won on goodreads, and the reason I've come across this trilogy. I don't know whether I'd have heard of it otherwise.

You could put this in the same arena of books as the Millenium Trilogy. It's a crime thriller, but it's also about the culture and corruption of a particular country, and it's connections to the wider international world of politics, war-mongering and conspiracy. This time we're in Venice, Italy, and a dead woman in priest's clothing has washed up at the steps of a church. But this is no straight forward murder mystery.

There are three main characters who are important to the trilogy - Holly Boland, a US solider who is just moving to the massive US camp just outside of Venice in this book. There's Daniele, who is a recluse Italien who has created Carnivia, an online version of Venice that's encrypted and closed to the authorities, so people can use it for information sharing, conversations, hook ups or whatever - the thing is that the authorities can't spy on you here. And there is Kat Tapo, who is just such a cool character. She's a detective in the military police (I can't say I completely understand the Italian legal system, but they seem to have two sets of police, and the military type police deal with civilian crimes too). All of them get pulled into their own individual mysteries, which turn out to be the same mystery. They've got to pool resources and figure things out if they're going to survive.

There's a lot of recent European history in this tale of corruption, and a lot of current issues, including human trafficking. Also another one which as it turns out was locally rather topical for me as the first female bishop has just been ordained at York cathedral this month!

I am very much looking forward to the third book.