Children of the Savage City: A Novel
Elizabeth Heider
Feb 2026 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Simon Vance
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About this audiobook
Criminal networks rule Naples, but detective Nikki Serafino is doing everything she can to set things right. But can her work ever extinguish the long shadow of her family’s past?
A peaceful evening mass at the historic Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo is shattered when a young au pair is killed in one of the cathedral’s quiet chapels. The witnesses, two American girls with political connections, are willing to speak to only one person: Nikki Serafino.
Investigator Nikki Serafino leads a disciplined life. When she’s not at work as a liaison between Italian police and the U.S. military, she cares for her aging family and teaches a women’s self-defense clinic. The moments Nikki has allowed her life to deviate from structure—usually for love—have always led to chaos. But her hard-won distance and professional control slip as she’s pulled into the web of lies, buried loyalties, and old wounds that encircle the young woman’s murder, and stir up her family’s ties to organized crime in Naples. Along with her partner Valerio, Nikki sets out to solve the case. But can she and Valerio—who has hidden debts to pay—stay clean when Naples seems to always leave soot on your hands?
As Nikki and Valerio navigate a landscape where justice is negotiable and alibi is currency, they come to understand: there’s no safety in neutrality, especially when they uncover signs of deeper, systemic duplicity. When grace and corruption share the same narrow streets, even the most principled must confront the cost of survival—and the blurred line between truth and self-preservation. In Naples, it seems even innocence comes at a price.
A peaceful evening mass at the historic Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo is shattered when a young au pair is killed in one of the cathedral’s quiet chapels. The witnesses, two American girls with political connections, are willing to speak to only one person: Nikki Serafino.
Investigator Nikki Serafino leads a disciplined life. When she’s not at work as a liaison between Italian police and the U.S. military, she cares for her aging family and teaches a women’s self-defense clinic. The moments Nikki has allowed her life to deviate from structure—usually for love—have always led to chaos. But her hard-won distance and professional control slip as she’s pulled into the web of lies, buried loyalties, and old wounds that encircle the young woman’s murder, and stir up her family’s ties to organized crime in Naples. Along with her partner Valerio, Nikki sets out to solve the case. But can she and Valerio—who has hidden debts to pay—stay clean when Naples seems to always leave soot on your hands?
As Nikki and Valerio navigate a landscape where justice is negotiable and alibi is currency, they come to understand: there’s no safety in neutrality, especially when they uncover signs of deeper, systemic duplicity. When grace and corruption share the same narrow streets, even the most principled must confront the cost of survival—and the blurred line between truth and self-preservation. In Naples, it seems even innocence comes at a price.
About the author
Elizabeth Heider lived in Italy for several years, working as a research analyst for the U.S. Navy. She’s currently a scientist at the European Space Agency, and her short fiction has earned recognition from the Santa Fe Writers Project Awards and the New Century Writer Awards.
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