City of Vengeance

Shortlisted for the 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize

'An impressive and immersive debut set in a beautifully realized sixteenth-century Florence'
Antonia Hodgson

'A first-class historical thriller . . . Bishop’s spirited and richly detailed story is a tour-de-force'
David Baldacci

'Richly atmospheric . . . transports you to another time and place'
Ambrose Parry, author of The Way of All Flesh

City of Vengeance is an explosive debut novel in an historical thriller series by D. V. Bishop, set in Renaissance Florence, which continues with The Darkest Sin.

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?

About the Author

D. V. Bishop is the pseudonym of award-winning writer David Bishop. His love for the city of Florence and the Renaissance period meant there could be only one setting for his crime fiction. The first book in the Cesare Aldo series, City of Vengeance, won the Pitch Perfect competition at the Bloody Scotland crime writing festival and the NZ Booklovers Award for Best Adult Fiction Book. It was also shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. Bishop was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship while writing that novel. He teaches creative writing at Edinburgh Napier University.