THE SECOND INSPECTOR TERESA BATTAGLIA NOVELA portrait painted in blood. A valley shrouded in secrecy. A woman fighting for her life. The talented Italian writer takes us to Friuli in the company of her uncompromising sleuth, Teresa Battaglia. Unlike so many female cops (especially on TV), Teresa is not svelte, soignée or young; she is overweight, over 60 and prone to unbuttoned cursing. And she has a secret she is hiding from colleagues: the onset of Alzheimer's. A canvas by a second world war partisan is found to have been painted with the blood from a human heart in a mystery yoking in the horrors of the Nazi era, shamanistic rituals and more contemporary murder. It's a heady mix.