Years ago, police officer Itala Caruso-nicknamed "The Queen"-was at the heart of a corruption ring. She was tasked with collecting the evidence that would send a man to prison, accused of being Persico, the abductor and killer of three teenage girls. Itala couldn't refuse the assignment, but she knew the truth wasn't so simple.
Now, in the quiet medieval town of Città del Fiume in northern Italy, sixteen-year-old Amala Cavalcante is violently abducted from her family's elegant home by a man with long white hair and locked in the basement of a crumbling building. Amala quickly realizes she will not make it out alive-unless she finds a way to escape.
Her aunt, Francesca Cavalcante, a lawyer, had once unsuccessfully defended the man accused of being Persico. Convinced of his innocence, she is certain the real killer is still free-and may very well be the one who has kidnapped her niece.
Enter Gershom "Jerry" Peretz, an Israeli who claims to be a tourist. He arrives in town just after the kidnapping, and he seems willing to do whatever it takes to find Amala. Even if it means killing.
The Evil That Men Do-its title drawn from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar ("The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones")-is a tightly woven, gripping novel about gender-based violence, the dark underside of respectable provincial society, and the enduring rot of institutional corruption.
