Rat King: Michael Dibdin

Industrialist Ruggiero Miletti has been kidnapped from the heart of one of Italy's most powerful families: and the family is oddly undisturbed that the kidnappers are getting panicky and impatient, that the trail is going cold and that police progress has been zero. Commissioner Aurelio Zen has been removed from his desk and thrust into this shadowy case and his arrival in Perugia is resented from the start - by the officials and the Miletti family, who would rather do business with the kidnappers without police intervention. Zen unearths sizzling secrets in this family rat nest: terrorism, drugs, takeover bids, dark past secrets, blackmail and sexual perversion - and each suspects has connections into the police department. Cover art by Tom Sciaaca.