Painted in Blood
'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.
ILARIA TUTI lives in Friuli, in the far north-eastern part of Italy. FLOWERS OVER THE INFERNO, the first book in the Teresa Battaglia trilogy, was a Times 'Crime Book of the Month' and a top 10 bestseller on publication in Italy.
Her second novel PAINTED IN BLOOD was published in Italy in 2019 and became an instant top 5 bestseller.