The author, Mike Wells, gave me a copy of this novel as an ARC in exchange for my review. As always, content may have changed between the copy I received and the date of publication.

I have not read the three novels that come before this one in the “Lust, Money & Murder” series. A friend has been urging me to read them extolling their suspenseful virtue but I’m simply haven’t had time so came into Cattoretti’s Return without that background into the character. Wells in Lust, Money & Murder, Book 4 - Cattoretti's Return gives us a good base as to who Giorgio Cattoretti is and how dangerous he is when he falls from a cliff, nurses himself back to health and removes his own eye.

The main plot of Lust, Money & Murder, Book 4 - Cattoretti's Return revolves around Giorgio’s sense of loss of his own lifestyle. He’s not a man to sit comfortably. He could stay dead or he could contemplate a return to society and in order to do that he must take a chance to do some bridge repair. He chooses the Russian mafia for that work. Letting them know he survived may not be the risk that pays off for Giorgio but in this multi-faceted work it remains a sub-plot and not the driving force of the work. Giorgio has been betrayed by those he thought he could trust and a life without living on the edge of danger seems to bore him. He is well aware, as a man of 57, that if he doesn’t make his mark now he’ll be on the wrong side of the ‘you’re someone or no one’ coin.

Giorgio is joined by Lexy, a 21-year-old Greek girl with a sick mother and druggie brother desperate for work. She agrees to clean, cook and satisfies him sexually at will and agrees, in part, because she needs the money but because she also loves this powerful, one-eyed, man on sight. Lust, Money & Murder, Book 4 - Cattoretti's Return is by no means a romance but shows both how manipulative Giorgio is the depths of his brutality and narcissism. Lexy, as a character, fell somewhat flat at times for this reader. She was both really stupid but in key moments very smart. A result of the character’s inexperience? Prior to meeting Giorgio she had never left her corner of the world and he takes her on a jet setting research trip in order to choose the perfect museum from which to enact the biggest art heist the world has seen.

Lust, Money & Murder, Book 4 - Cattoretti's Return overall was well worth reading and I will be eagerly on board for the next. If you’re interested in the evolution of counter-culture baddies and their inner workings, pick up the tale of one of the best. The rest of the series is already locked and loaded on the Ipad for vacation and I eagerly await seeing how Giorgio got his start. ( )