On a hot summer’s morning in Rome, three public places — a McDonald’s, a preschool, and a café — come under siege from a group of terrorists who appear to be Islamic extremists. When word comes through that the terrorists will only negotiate with Detective Leone Scamarcio, no one is more surprised than Scamarcio himself.

The young man with frightened eyes who speaks to Scamarcio seems anything but in control. He says that Scamarcio is the only person he can trust to care about the truth. Then he gives Scamarcio an unusual list of demands, including that everything must be done without police or intelligence involvement, and within twenty-four hours — or the hostages die.

With his face on every TV screen, and with all of Italy on alert, Scamarcio must race against the clock and elude the grasp of the increasingly unhinged chief of intelligence, Colonel Scalisi, to meet the terrorists’ demands, and to uncover the truth behind the attacks. But, as Scamarcio follows the young man’s clues, he finds that every question seems to turn up five more, and, as usual for this son-of-a-Mafioso policeman, nothing is as it seems.

My thanks to Adam Howard at Scribe for my review copy and the chance to join the blog tour.

The Extremist stars with an explosion of horror as the reader is witness to a terror siege in Rome. One of the terrorists makes a demand – he wants to speak with Detective Leone Scamarcio and nobody else will do. This is something of a shock to Scamarcio who is required to walk into the heart of the action with no protection, no back up and no idea why he has been summoned.

Even after speaking with a nervous terrorist Scamarcio is unclear exactly what is expected of him – he does know that his own unique background (a cop with mafia connections) is the reason he was sought out.

Scamarcio is set a challenge, recover a box from a garden far from where the action is taking place then come back and speak with the terrorist again. Not easy – as soon as he leaves the scene of the siege Scamarcio is expected to update his colleagues but he is not to speak of the task he has been set and to share the detail means he will not have the chance to get to that garden…he needs to escape from the police and go it alone.

The situation in Rome is critical and Scamarcio is racing against time to meet the deadline he has been set – if he fails then innocent lives will be lost. The challenges he faces will put him in peril more than once, he cannot trust anyone and it seems the terrorists may also be pawns in a more deadly game. You need to keep your wits about you whilst reading The Extremist, it gets twisty.

The Extremist is the fourth Leone Scamarcio thriller. Do you need to have read the earlier novels?  Nope….but there is a lot going on in The Extremist and I suspect that returning readers will get great enjoyment from seeing how the characters move on while new readers get a high tempo adventure.

I usually have three or more books on the go at one time, while reading The Extremist I only wanted to focus on this one story. It is fast and furious and with many of the characters not being open with Scamarcio and playing their own game it needed my full attention to ensure I was keeping up with events.

I do enjoy when I can get my teeth into a gripping tale, when characters will have me questioning their motives and especially when I cannot predict where a story is heading.  The Extremist was an intense read but I was hooked so I am happy.

The Extremist is published by Scribe and is available in paperback and digital format.  You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Extremist-Leone-Scamarcio-Nadia-Dalbuono-ebook/dp/B077Y7DSP5/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1518302325&sr=1-3