New Historical Fiction Spotlight: Ritual of Fire: An Explosive Historical Thriller in a Scorching Renaissance Florence (Cesare Aldo series Book 3) by D. V. Bishop

Available for pre-order 

from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Ceremonial murder has returned to Florence, and only two men

can end the destruction.

Florence. Summer, 1538: A night patrol finds a wealthy merchant hanged and set ablaze in the city’s main square. More than mere murder, this killing is intended to put the fear of God into Florence. Forty years earlier, puritanical monk Girolamo Savonarola was executed the same way. Does this new killing mean his fanatical disciples are reviving the monk’s regime of holy terror?

Cesare Aldo is busy hunting thieves in the Tuscan countryside, leaving Constable Carlo Strocchi to investigate the killing. When another merchant is burned alive in public, the rich start fleeing to their country estates. But the Tuscan hills can also be dangerous.

Growing religious fervour and a scorching heatwave drives the city ever closer to madness. Meanwhile, someone is stalking those powerful men who forged lifelong bonds in the dark days of Savonarola.

Unless Aldo and Strocchi work together, all of Florence will be consumed by an inferno of death and destruction.

Ritual of Fire is the third Cesare Aldo mystery, preceded by City of Vengeance and The Darkest Sin.

# # #

About the Author

D. V. Bishop writes the award-winning Cesare Aldo mysteries set in Renaissance Florence. The first, CITY OF VENGEANCE, received the New Zealand Booklovers Award for best novel, and was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. The second, THE DARKEST SIN, was published in March 2022, and Cesare Aldo returns in RITUAL OF FIRE in June 2023. Bishop was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship while writing CITY OF VENGEANCE. The novel won the Pitch Perfect competition at the 2018 Bloody Scotland international crime fiction festival, and was a Sunday Times Crime Club Pick of the Week. Find out more at the author's website https://dvbishop.com/ and find him on Twitter @davidbishop