Painted in Blood

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What to expect

'The Sleeping Nymph': a work of art of magnetic beauty, painted by a young partisan fighter during the last days of the Second World War. A painting carrying a shocking secret hidden in the red pigment on the canvas, made with the blood of a human heart.

But whose heart?

There is no body, no confession. Only that faint trace of blood. And that's what leads commissioner Teresa Battaglia - herself hiding an unspeakable truth - to the Resia Valley, in the north eastern part of Italy: a perfect genetic enclave protected for centuries from the outside world.

The valley and the portrait are the only clues for a murder that occurred more than 70 years before. A red thread leading to the shadow of someone hell-bent on protecting a sacred secret.

Critics Review

PRAISE FOR FLOWERS OVER THE INFERNO
Superintendent Teresa Battaglia, a criminal profile expert, is in her sixties, overweight, lonely, diabetic, full of the ailments of ageing - and delightful. It's rare that such a character enters crime fiction for the first time, and with such gripping impact.
Marcel Berlins, The Times (Crime Book of the Month)
Creepy and evocative... but what gives this novel particular appeal is the sixty-something central character, whose abrasive manner hides a warm heart.
Guardian
Teresa Battaglia is set to give Tyneside's Vera a run for her money.
Lancashire Post
Exhilarating... Teresa Battaglia, who must deal with casual and constant sexism in her position of authority, is an unforgettable character readers will want to see a lot more of.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
One of the best parts of Flowers Over the Inferno is the older, gruff superintendent Teresa Battaglia. She is out of shape, diabetic and busy fighting the early stages of Alzheimer's disease - on top of handling a complex case. We sympathise with Battaglia quite naturally, and it's nice to see a cop who isn't slim and sexy chasing after serial killers.
NPR
Painted In Blood shows a young writer flexing her muscles trying, and succeeding, to produce a crime novel which is distinctive, unusual and makes full use of the myths and magic of its chosen landscape.
SHOTS
The talented Italian writer takes us to Friuli in the company of her uncompromising sleuth, Teresa Battaglia. Unlike so many female cops (especially on TV), Teresa is not svelte, soignée or young; she is overweight, over 60 and prone to unbuttoned cursing. And she has a secret she is hiding from colleagues: the onset of Alzheimer's. A canvas by a second world war partisan is found to have been painted with the blood from a human heart in a mystery yoking in the horrors of the Nazi era, shamanistic rituals and more contemporary murder. It's a heady mix.
Financial Times

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