The Darkest Sin Synopsis
*Winner of the CWA Historical Dagger 2023*
'Pretty much everything I want in an historical thriller - an absolutely terrific read' - Philip Gwynne Jones
'A great insight into Renaissance Florence. What I love about these books is the seamless weaving of factual history with a great story' - Abir Mukherjee
Florence. Spring, 1537.
When Cesare Aldo investigates a report of intruders at a convent in the Renaissance city's northern quarter, he enters a community divided by bitter rivalries and harbouring dark secrets.
His case becomes far more complicated when a man's body is found deep inside the convent, stabbed more than two dozen times. Unthinkable as it seems, all the evidence suggests one of the nuns must be the killer.
Meanwhile, Constable Carlo Strocchi finds human remains pulled from the Arno that belong to an officer of the law missing since winter. The dead man had many enemies, but who would dare kill an official of the city's most feared criminal court?
As Aldo and Strocchi close in on the truth, identifying the killers will prove more treacherous than either of them could ever have imagined . . .
The Darkest Sin is an atmospheric locked-room thriller by D. V. Bishop, set in Renaissance Florence and is the sequel to City of Vengeance.
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D. V. Bishop Press Reviews
'A great insight into Renaissance Florence. What I love about these books is the seamless weaving of factual history with a great story -- Abir Mukherjee, bestselling author of the Wyndham & Banerjee series He is fast becoming a serious rival to C. J. Sansom and S. J. Parris with his page-turning novels. Highly recommended' - Historical Novel Society
'Pretty much everything I want in an historical thriller - an absolutely terrific read, in a series that's clearly going from strength to strength' -- Philip Gwynne Jones, author of the Nathan Sutherland series
'A real pleasure. A lavender-scented, sun-drenched convent hidden among the backstreets of Florence is the absorbing setting for Cesare Aldo's latest investigation. The conflicting ambitions and ideals of its cast of interesting women make this an engrossing mystery' -- Leonora Nattrass, author of Black Drop
'D.V Bishop transports you to an utterly convincing 16th century Florence, where the best and worst of human nature constantly circle each other in this tense mystery' -- S. G. MacLean
'My first encounter with the investigator Cesare Aldo was immersive and rewarding. The author's knowledge of 16th century Florence - both ecclesiastic and civil - drew me effortlessly into his tale of bloodshed and murder. Thoroughly recommended' -- A. D. Swanston
'History, mystery and the eternal mystique of Renaissance Florence in perfect harmony!' - Lancashire Evening Post
About D. V. Bishop
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. City of Vengeance was also shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, and Bishop was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship while writing it. He teaches Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University. The Darkest Sin is the second novel in the Cesare Aldo series.
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