The American

The second Leone Scamarcio thriller. As autumn sets in, the queues outside the soup kitchens of Rome are lengthening, and the people are taking to the piazzas, increasingly frustrated by the deepening economic crisis. When Detective Leone Scamarcio is called to an apparent suicide on the Ponte SantAngelo, a stones throw from Vatican City, the dead man's expensive suit suggests yet another businessman fallen on hard times. But Scamarcio is immediately troubled by similarities with the 1982 murder of Roberto Calvi, dubbed Gods Banker because of his work for the Vatican Bank. When, days later, a cardinal with links to the bank is killed, and the CIA send a couple of heavies to warn him off the case, Scamarcio knows hes onto something big. As disturbing connections between 9/11, Americas dirty wars, Vatican corruption, the Mafia, and Italys violence against its own people begin to emerge, Scamarcio is forced to deal with responsibilities far above his pay grade in this tightly plotted mystery full of political intrigue.