City of Vengeance
From the Winner of The Crime Writers' Association Historical Dagger Award
by D. V. Bishop
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Pub Date Feb 04 2021 | Archive Date Apr 29 2021
Pan Macmillan | Macmillan
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Description
An explosive historical thriller set against the backdrop of the Medici dynasty in 1530s Renaissance Florence.
Florence. Winter, 1536. A prominent Jewish moneylender is murdered in his home, a death with wide implications in a city powered by immense wealth.
Cesare Aldo, a former soldier and now an officer of the Renaissance city's most feared criminal court, is given four days to solve the murder: catch the killer before the feast of Epiphany - or suffer the consequences.
During his investigations Aldo uncovers a plot to overthrow the volatile ruler of Florence, Alessandro de' Medici. If the Duke falls, it will endanger the whole city. But a rival officer of the court is determined to expose details about Aldo's private life that could lead to his ruin. Can Aldo stop the conspiracy before anyone else dies, or will his own secrets destroy him first?
D. V. Bishop is an award-winning screenwriter and TV dramatist. His love for the city of Florence and the Renaissance period meant there could be only one setting for his crime fiction debut. City of Vengeance won the Pitch Perfect competition at Bloody Scotland 2018, and he was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship by the Scottish Book Trust while writing the novel. When not busy being programme leader for creative writing at Edinburgh Napier University, he plans his next research trip to Florence.
Advance Praise
"Richly atmospheric . . . transports you to another time and place." —AMBROSE PARRY, author of The Way of All Flesh and The Art of Dying
"So fluid and fluent, the pages almost turn themselves." —JAMES OSWALD
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781529038774 |
| PRICE | £14.99 (GBP) |
| PAGES | 416 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Susan M, Reviewer
1536 Travelling to Florence, Cesare Aldo, law enforcer, and Samuels Levi, are attacked but survive. Although late Levi is murdered in his home and Aldo is given four days to find the guilty party. But this is not the only murder the Otto need to investigate. But political intrigue and secrets seem to be everywhere.
A entertaining and well-written historical mystery, I found the characters to be likeable in the main especially that of the complex Aldo. A good start to the series which I look forward to reading the next.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Jaidee D, Reviewer
3 "so much to admire, extremely interesting, way too Hollywood" stars !!
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and Pan Macmillan for an e-copy. I am providing an honest review. This was released February 2021.
A warm mention to Paromjit whose stellar review made me want to read this immediately. GR buddy Maureen also left a very enthusiastic four star review which also propelled me further.
I am considering presenting this book to my writing circle in the Autumn so will do this review in point form format to allow the ideas to take hold in my little brain and give them time to grow.
What was absolutely stellar :
1. subject matter was incredibly interesting...a historical crime fiction of the murder of Duke Alessandro de Medici (who was likely mixed race) in 1536 Florence over the period of about 10 days
2. the book was INCREDIBLY well plotted with a logical and fascinating sequence of events...the author left no string hanging and the foreshadowing and layout were unbelievably excellent...(all these terrible chick lit thriller writers have so much to learn about this)
3. the exploration of misogyny, homophobia and anti-semitism as sub-themes in this book was both welcome and educational...the stakes were so high for unprotected women, men who desired love with other men and the Jewish communities in general.
4. the ability of the writer to keep track of a very large cast of characters and make them distinct for the writer while providing a general sociology to understanding social status, the church and the functioning of political bureaucracies as well as exploring to some degree both police forces and bordellos
5. the careful seeding of the plot to lay out future instalments of this series...both interesting and enticing
6. the book cover is five star amazing !
What was troublesome and needed huge improvements:
1. the main characters could have been etched much more deeply with some exploration of their internal conflicts and personality functioning
2. as fascinating as this was this felt rather anachronistic to appease general readers
3. the physical fighting felt more Pirates of the Caribbean than true historical content....at times became so slapstick that it was just DAMN SILLY
4. the dialogue when humor was included was so cheezy that it gave me that really bad kind of gas
Preferentially I would also liked more political and family intrigue, some delicious heterosexual sex and a deepening of the gay romance (these were not deal breakers for me just minor quibbles).
Aspects of this were so bloody amazing that I want to continue but I really dislike slapstick and cheezy humor. I will compromise and longlist and see what happens.
