By Pam Ferris-Olson, Special To The Observer

New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen hadn’t planned to write a book about the Holocaust. But one night in Venice, Italy, she had a nightmare. In it, she played her violin with the unsettling consequence of transforming a baby into a glowing-eyed monster.

“I knew there was a story here,” she says. “I didn’t know anything beyond that little nugget of an idea.”

But as she walked around Venice later that day, she says the entire plot revealed itself to her. It crystallized when she stood at Venice’s Ghetto Nuovo. There, she read a memorial plaque bearing the names of the more than 200 Jews of Venice who were deported to Nazi death camps in 1943-44.

On the day she visited, the square seemed pleasant and peaceful. It was difficult for her to believe that terrible events had once taken place there.

“You would think that frightening echoes remain in those walls, some trace of horror, but no. They’re just walls. That somehow bothers me, that evil can come and go without leaving any footprints.”

She’ll talk about her newest novel, Playing with Fire, on Dec. 3 and Dec. 4 as part of the JCC’s Cultural Arts & Book Fest, in conjunction with Washington Centerville Public Library.

Gerritsen is the author of the Rizzoli & Isles series featuring Boston Police Detective Jane Rizzoli and Chief Medical Examiner Maura Isles. The Rizzoli & Isles books were successfully reformulated for television — the basis of the television show of the same name, which began its sixth season in September on TNT.

She describes Playing with Fire as a mystery about a boy who loved a girl, and how the world came between them.

Professional violinist Julia Ansdell purchases an old piece of music — the Incendio waltz — during a visit to Venice.

Entranced with the music’s mournfulness and feverish arpeggios, Julia isn’t prepared for the havoc the waltz wreaks upon her life. She becomes obsessed to find out what she can about the music’s origin. Her journey takes her back to Italy and to the Risiera di San Sabba compound, where she unearths the unsettling truth about the piece.

Julia learns that Risiera di San Sabba was originally built by the Germans as a transit camp and detention center for Italian prisoners during World War II.

The prison camp was eventually equipped with a crematorium for the execution of Jews. As Julia unlocks these secrets, she also finds herself involved in a murder with a distinct possibility that she may become the next victim.

A violinist herself, Gerritsen loves traditional Irish and Scottish music. About halfway through the creative process of writing Playing with Fire, she woke up with the melody for Incendio in her head. She thinks the descriptions she wrote of the haunting music worked their way into her subconscious.

“Suddenly the melody itself was there,” Gerritsen said. “I had never planned to compose any music to go along with the story, so it was quite a surprise when Incendio came to me, almost as a gift from the universe.”

In the book, Incendio is the composition of Lorenzo, a talented violinist, after the love of his life, Laura, is taken to Risiera di San Sabba.

Gerritsen says she has no personal connection to the Holocaust, but believes there are lessons in it that belong to everyone. History, she says, is best learned when it is felt.

“Emotions stick with you much longer than mere facts ever could. Readers will remember the tragic story of Lorenzo and Laura, and because of that, they will remember that Italy had its Holocaust, too.”

Novelist Tess Gerritsen will discuss her new mystery, Playing with Fire, as part of the JCC Cultural Arts & Book Fest, on Thursday, Dec. 3 at 7 p.m. at the Boonshoft Center for Jewish Culture and Education, 525 Versailles Dr., Centerville. Tickets are $5 in advance, $8 at the door, and are available at jewishdayton.org, by calling 610-1555, or at the Boonshoft CJCE.

She’ll also be interviewed at Centerville Public Library, 111 W. Spring Valley Rd., on Friday, Dec. 4 at 10:30 a.m. R.S.V.P. online at wclibrary.info.

To read the complete November 2015 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.