Elizabeth Heider — Children of the Savage City
A physicist-turned-novelist sets a murder in a Naples cathedral, drawing on years living in the city as a civilian analyst with the US Navy.
Why we picked this
A physicist who worked for the European Space Agency and Microsoft's AI research division, writing crime novels set in Naples. The biography alone is worth showing up for.
Elizabeth Heider’s “Children of the Savage City” drops investigator Nikki Serafino into a murder at a historic Naples cathedral, where an ambassador’s daughter becomes entangled in a web of corruption and secrets. Heider writes Naples with the authority of someone who lived there, having spent years in the city as a civilian analyst with the US Navy. The novel has drawn comparisons to Roberto Saviano and Elena Ferrante for its portrayal of a city that, as Heider puts it, “feeds on secrets.”
Heider’s debut, “May the Wolf Die,” was named a New York Times Best Crime Novel and Washington Post Best Mystery. Before writing fiction, she earned a PhD in physics and worked at the European Space Agency’s human spaceflight division and Microsoft’s AI4Science program. She’ll be in conversation with I.S. Berry, a former CIA operations officer whose spy novel “The Peacock and the Sparrow” won the Edgar, Barry, and Macavity Awards.
Free admission with first-come, first-served seating at Politics and Prose’s Union Market location.