March 12

City of Vengeance – D.V. Bishop

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?

 

Reviewing my purchased copy of City of Vengeance

 

If asked, I’d tell you that I don’t really read a lot of historical fiction. However, over the last twelve months I seem to be spending far more time in the past and that’s been a bit of an eye opener for me. Suddenly it seems there’s a whole new range of titles calling out to me and I am going to make the time to read them.

Part of the reason behind my recent conversion towards historical crime is that I have chosen a few crackers to read. Just last week I was giving a five star review to a story set in occupied Paris of 1940 and today; another five star read but this time the story is set in Florence in 1536. Beautiful Florence but D.V. Bishop is going to show us the darker side of the city too. The action will move from the courts of the leaders of the city, to the brothels, the churches, the prison and the guardhouse. Some characters will appear in all of these locations – some will pop up in areas they really shouldn’t be and that will keep Cesare Aldo a busy man.

We meet Aldo as he is returning to Florence – he is escorting a wealthy businessman who has concerns about his personal safety (and that of his money) as he travels home from business meetings. Aldo is to see him safely through the dangerous paths and the open spaces in the Italian countryside. But in the opening paragraphs of City of Vengeance Aldo’s worst fears are realised and the two men are ambushed. A fight ensues and the reader gets to see Aldo in the thick of the action. He was a soldier, he’s now an officer in the city guard and as well as being an astute investigator he can more than handle himself in a fight. Usually. It is a terrific opening to the story and as the dust settled I knew I was going to get on well with Cesare Aldo.

When he is safely home the real intrigue begins.  A wealthy moneylender is murdered in the Jewish sector of the city. A young man is battered to death, his sexual preferences deemed an abhoration to soneone. Plots to disrupt the power at the top of Florence. Aldo will be drawn into each of these issues, his reputation and his life will be put on the line while he tries his best to execute his duties to the best of his abilities.

D.V. Bishop keeps multiple storylines flowing and interweaving without letting the pace drop or the action stagnate. There are clear villains for readers to oppose, you want to see them topple. But there is also a nice collection of allies for Aldo with an equally satisfying number of players that cannot be easily put into categories. This third group are the most intruging as their motives are not always clear and Aldo the least of their concerns – you can’t help but feel some of these characters will return in future and their interests will overlap with Aldo’s story again. It all feels part of the author’s broader plan to bring readers to sixteenth centrury Florence and get them invested in the life of the city and the players that will define its future. I am very much here for the ride.

I said that I was going to make time to read more historical fiction and that time starts immediately – I am returning to Florence and picking up Aldo’s story. The second book, The Darkest Sin, is going to be my next audiobook listen, I don’t want to wait any longer than is necessary to find out the consequences of Aldo’s decision right at the end of City of Vengeance.

 

City of Vengeance is available in paperback digital and audiobook. You can buy a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08G1HJVVW/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

 

 

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January 7

Decades – Compiling the Ultimate Library with D.V. Bishop

Welcome back to my Decades Library. It’s a new year but I am asking my guests to take on the same challenge. Each week someone from the world of books will join me to help me in my quest to assemble the Ultimate Libary. I call it my Decades Library for reasons which shall shortly become clear.

For anyone joining us for the first time – Welcome! Let me explain what the Decades Library is all about. I began this challenge with the simple question: If I was to build a new library (starting with zero books) which books should I add to my library shelves to make sure I had the very best collection of titles available for people to read?

I knew I could not take on this challenge alone so each week I invite a new guest to join me and I ask them to add some of their favourite books to my Decades Library.  They have to follow two rules. Got to have rules or chaos ensues.

Rule 1 – Pick Any Five Books.
Rule 2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades.

I have finally wrestled the Curators Hat back from my last guest, Lisa Gray (thanks for looking after it over the holidays Lisa) and I am delighted to introduce D.V. Bishop who will make the first five selections of 2022.

 

D.V. Bishop writes the Cesare Aldo historical crime novels set in Renaissance Florence. The first in the series, City of Vengeance, was shortlisted for the 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, won the Pitch Perfect contest at the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing festival, and earned Bishop a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. It was published in paperback on January 6th, 2022. The second Cesare Aldo novel, The Darkest Sin, comes out March 2022 in hardback, ebook and audiobook – pre-order links here: http://linktr.ee/TheDarkestSin

D.V. Bishop is the pen-name of David Bishop, an award-winning screenwriter and TV dramatist. He has authored audio dramas and tie-in novels for Doctor Who and Judge Dredd. A former editor of iconic British science fiction weekly 2000AD, Bishop has written nearly fifty issues of beloved comics character The Phantom. Bishop co-created the original graphic novel Dani’s Toys with artist Ruairi Coleman which will be launched via a Kickstarter campaign in 2022.

In his copious spare time Bishop leads the MA Creative Writing and the MA Writing Popular Fiction programmes at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. A glutton for punishment, he is developing a new global online MA Creative Writing programme focusing on popular genre fiction for 2022.

 

DECADES

I live in Scotland, but my heart belongs to where I was born and raised: Aotearoa (New Zealand). My contributions to the Ultimate Library all come from NZ, books that deserve to be better known.

 

1960s: The Scarecrow by Ronald Hugh Morrieson (1963)

 

‘The same week our fowls were stolen, Daphne Moran had her throat cut.’ That sentence opens The Scarecrow, an early Kiwi Gothic and the first novel by Ronald Hugh Morrieson. He struggled to get published in his lifetime yet all four of his novels were adapted into films. The Scarecrow is funny, creepy, insightful, thrilling, and picaresque in equal measure. It is available on Kindle in the UK.

 

 

 

 

1970s: Smith’s Dream by C. K. Stead (1971)

 

Smith’s Dream is a taut, speculative thriller set in a New Zealand where political apathy lets a repressive government take charge. The title character went off the grid after his marriage ended; when he re-emerges, Smith struggles to recognise what his country has become. Hard to find in print, but the 1977 film version Sleeping Dogs with a young Sam Hunt is on UK DVD & Blu-Ray.

 

 

 

 

1980s: Photo Finish by Ngaio Marsh (1980)

 

I could hardly make this list without including one of the Golden Age queens of mystery fiction, Ngaio Marsh, after whom NZ’s crime fiction awards are named. Photo Finish is set in a millionaire’s island mansion and features a Maria Callas-esque opera diva being stabbed through the heart with a photo of herself impaled on the dagger. Unsurprisingly, most of Marsh’s work remains in print.

 

 

 

 

1990s: Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff (1990)

 

This is a blistering novel about domestic violence and toxic masculinity. Once Were Warriors held a mirror up to aspects of life in New Zealand that few people discussed, forcing readers to face the brutal reality of racism and sexism in the country. There’s an acclaimed film version that won prizes world-wide, but Duff’s debut novel deserves to be read for its unflinching prose and power.

 

 

 

 

2000s: Overkill by Vanda Symon (2007)

 

The prologue of this debut is compelling and terrifying in equal measure, setting the stage for a brilliant first novel by Vanda Symon. UK readers discovered how gripping Overkill was when Orenda Books unleashed a new edition in 2018, and it was rightly shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger. But Overkill was first published 2007 in NZ, so it sneaks into my stretch of five decades.

 

 

 

 

 

My thanks to David for these marvellous selections. When I invite anyone to take part in the Decades Challenge I always mention that the selections are all very personal choices so to see five New Zealand titles gracing the Library shelves just warms my heart. I have even reviewed one of them for this blog!

David kindly provided a pre-order link for his forthcoming Cesare Aldo thriller The Darkest Sin but the first book in the series, City of Vengeance, released this week in paperback and you can grab a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/city-of-vengeance/d-v-bishop/9781529038798

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

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