Publishers Weekly

Hewson’s fine seventh crime novel to feature Nic Costa (after The Garden of Evil) takes the Italian police detective to San Francisco, where aging, ailing director Roberto Tonti is preparing for the premiere of his first major film in 20 years, Inferno. Based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, the $150-million blockbuster, which was filmed in Tonti’s native Italy, is to be the capstone of the director’s career.

In San Francisco, the Questura (Costa’s outfit) and the carabinieri—the former charged with security for Dante artefacts in a tie-in exhibit, the latter with security for the actors—pursue separate, often conflicting agendas after a series of bizarre incidents, including a priceless artifact’s theft, a movie star’s kidnapping and an attack on another star that results in death. The SFPD also gets into the act as more murders plague the film’s debut. A convoluted plot, eccentric characters and numerous sinister connections to Hitchcock’s Vertigo all contribute to the suspense.

In the Times Record News, Wichita, Amy Hawkins writes…

In the seventh in his series featuring the suave Italian detective Nic Costa, David Hewson takes his leading man to San Francisco to track down spectacularly crafted crimes set against the backdrop of a film premiere in Dante’s Numbers. Hitchcock-type intrigue fuses with modern crime investigation as Nic and his two colleagues track down the missing death mask of Dante, preclude the infiltration of a historical exhibit at Golden Gate Park, and deduce the killer’s MO and identity – all while dodging the San Francisco team and the Carabinieri, their Italian counterparts, also on the case.

Not one to gloss over Costa’s romantic nature, Hewson slowly reveals a delicious subplot involving Nic and Maggie Flavier, the star of the murder-embroiled film. Hewson leads you on an exciting journey, tumbling back and forth from San Francisco to Rome, wrapping it up in a classic Hitchcock climax that literally made me gasp – out loud. Like a whitewater rafting trip, over the rapids one minute and cruising along calmer waters the next, you find yourself catching your breath after each chapter for the next rush. Flawless suspense is intertwined with Dante’s eternal intrigue.

In Bookreporter Joe Hartlaub hailed the book as ‘the author’s best to date’, writing….

Dante’s Numbers is arguably the most accessible of Hewson’s works, which is not to say that the plot is necessarily a simple one. Nor does Hewson fail to inform while entertaining. Indeed, the ins and outs of film financing, motion picture history, the differences between a producer and a director, and a little-known but centuries-old financial version of the game of “chicken” are all explored here, against the backdrop of one of the world’s most interesting cities and, of course, the dip and swirl of romantic relationships. All of this is done within the context of an elaborate murder mystery, and exquisitely so.

In Mystery News Harriet Stay gives the book five stars and writes….

I always have a special feeling when I begin a new book by a familiar author, especially one like David Hewson, who has never disappointed and at times created unexpected surprises. This is no exception. Hewson propels the reader from page one through a twisted whodunit, unraveling cryptic clues, converging with potential suspects, enjoying a romp beyond the cable cars and Union Square, touching the technology world of overnight billionaires, all the while still maintaining himself as a magician with the English language. This is a top-notch, thrilling ride.

Booklist

Hewson never loses the reader’s attention, and for fans of this outstanding series, the latest chapter in the interlocked lives of Costa and friends… is as delicious as ever.

Margaret Cannon in the Toronto Globe & Mail

The seventh of Hewson’s series featuring Nic Costa of the Italian State Police is as smart and sophisticated as the other six. Hewson always uses some bit of Roman or Italian history or literature to focus his modern crime novels, and this is one of his best. Maybe that’s because the central theme is built around the work of Dante, or maybe it’s because Hewson moves the action, but not the mood, from Rome to Los Angeles, the centre of glitz and glamour. Dante and movies? If you think it won’t work, think again.

Winston-Salem Journal

With his carefully prepared stories, larded with tasty historical tidbits and spread out across the series’ sumptuous Roman setting, David Hewson has created a growing clientele of satisfied readers. His handsome, slightly rumpled detective, Nic Costa, has led the reader through a feast of multilayered plot concoctions in the past six novels. The seventh in the series will be equally pleasing to his fans’ palates.

When this series left Italy, it did not leave good writing behind; Hewson’s stories are simply well-done police procedurals in an exotic package.

Richmond Times-Dispatch

Sending his cast to America is a masterful touch from Hewson, who works diligently to keep his series from becoming stale… As illusion fuses with reality and builds to a shattering climax, Hewson keeps his readers grounded in what’s real. Rich in characters, complex of plot, Dante’s Numbers is a worthy entry in an erudite, entertaining series.

Edmonton Sun

David Hewson’s Rome-based trio of Italian detectives, Nic Costa, Leo Falcone and Teresa Lupo, move their operations temporarily to America in this new novel. A multimillion dollar movie is being shot in Rome, based on Dante’s masterpiece, Inferno, with an international cast which includes two American movie stars, Allan Prime and Maggie Flavier. The Italian premiere is accompanied by an exhibit of the poet’s priceless death mask, but a macabre intervention showing Prime’s kidnapping and murder brings the detectives into the case. As the movie premiere moves to San Francisco, they are along to protect other artifacts. Eerie coincidences turn up involving Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Vertigo. Other murders and an obsessive killer heighten the suspense. Another Nic Costa winner.

The Mystery Gazette

The Dante connection in Italy is one of the best police procedural opening segues in years… fans of the series will enjoy Costa and his mates as they travel the mean streets of San Francisco.

Claire Emsberger in the Sullivan County Democrat

Allow me simply to announce this eighth of David Hewson’s Rome suspense novels—the third I’ve reported on in the last two years, again featuring the brilliant and soulful detective, Nic Costa. These are contemporary novels, but also steeped in the lore of different periods of the city’s history (which has plenty of history to draw on). In this one, for the first time in the series and in his life, he leaves Rome—for San Francisco. With an American movie star. But Costa remains gloomily philosophical, just the way we like him, and the story is just the way we like it.

Bookbag

Nic Costa is a breath of fresh air in detective fiction in general. The absence of clichéd police officers is to be highly commended. Although the pathologist is a light-hearted character, she doesn’t hang around making horrible jokes about sandwiches for black humour. All four police officers are thoroughly plausible human beings. I was really pleased with Dante’s Numbers. It’s played dead straight but contains just enough that is quirky and off the wall. The ending is over the top but utterly utterly brilliant, and even in the very few parts which are predictable it’s all a huge amount of fun. Hewson’s writing is solid and engaging, and he’s clearly at ease with his regular cast of characters.

Good Book Guide

Several non-Italian novelists have chosen to set their thrillers in that country. David Hewson is perhaps the least heralded of that group and deserves far wider acclaim, as this seventh novel in his impeccable Italian crime series demonstrates. His detective is Nic Costa, and Nic’s beat (Rome and Venice) is brilliantly evoked in Hewson’s economical but evocative prose. The death mask of the poet Dante is to be on show for the premiere of a new film based on the Inferno. But at the unveiling, a grim death mask of the film’s star, Allen Prime, is found to have replaced the priceless original.

Book Fiends Kingdom

David Hewson has done it again with his new novel about Nic Costa, his Italian copper based in the city of Rome with this being number seven in the series…a brilliant author and I thoroughly enjoy his writing. Every page is filled with interesting facts, clues and sometimes extra information about the place the case takes place. San Francisco is a beautiful city and the area where this plays out up by the Golden Gate Bridge is exceptional. He captures the reader from page one till the end, still not letting on who is the real perpetrator of the crimes.