
One Sunday morning in 1993 a 16-year-old girl named Eliza Claps goes missing from a church in the centre of Potenza Italy. Shortly before her disappearance Elisa had met Danilo Restivo a strange local boy with a fetish for cutting womens hair on the back of buses. Elisas family are convinced that Resitvo is responsible for their daughters disappearance but he is protected by local big-wigs: by his Sicilian father by a doctor with links to organised crime by a priest who had vices of his own. Years went by & Elisas family could find only false leads. 2002 & Restivo is now living in Bournemouth. In November that year his neighbour is found murdered with strands of her own hair in her hands. Once again the police are at a loss to pin anything on him. Its not until 2010 when Elisas decomposed body is found in the church where she went missing that the two cases are linked & Restivo is finally dealt with. Blood on the Altar" combines a gripping true crime case with Jones deep understanding of Italian culture
- the impunity it offers to the powerful
- he so expertly demonstrated in his bestseller: " The Dark Heart of Italy"."