Carrisi, Donato: The Lost Girls of Rome

It took me some time to read this 'Italian Literary Thriller Phenomenon' to quote the cover.   The
basic story is the search for a missing girl in Rome.   Two men talk about this over a coffee with one of them then going to the apartment where she lived; they are members of a proscribed Vatican order, the Penitenzieri, trained to search out evil.   At the same time in Milan, Sandra, a police forensics
expert, is looking for answers to her husband's death and this takes her to Rome where her search and
that of the Penitenzieri become entwined.   She becomes involved with an Interpol investigator whom
she distrusts as his objective is not just to find out how her husband dies but to unmask the Penitenzieri.    The search for the girl is complicated and, as ever, a number of blind alleys before the
man who had already killed other girls was unmasked.   Interspersed with this story is one of another
search for a different serial killer which moves from Paris to Prague and Chernobyl though there is
a final coalescing of the three strands by the end of the novel.   I found the development of all three
strands was well done as was the linking of the two Roman lines.   While the exposing of the primary
villain came as no surprise, the build-up to his capture was effectively done.   The end of the book does come as a surprise which I leave you to discover for yourself.   A really good thriller well worth
seeking out.