The book that first inspired CITY OF VENGEANCE, my crime fiction debut, coming 2021 from Macmillan

I've always been a crime writer, but spent a lot of my career before CITY OF VENGEANCE writing other stories. Crime was almost always the narrative engine for my stories, whether in science fiction novels, screenwriting episodes of Doctors for the BBC, or scripting graphic novels and comics.

Like so many crime writers before me, I grew up reading mystery stories. I loved the brain-teasing puzzle element of those narratives, but also the way they brought alive the time and place in which they were set, and how another story wasalways  being told alongside the questions of whodunnit, howdunnit, or whydunnit?

CITY OF VENGEANCE has been a long time coming. I started the novel in 2017, thanks to the push provided by a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship from the Scottish Book Trust and Creative Scotland. The fellowship gave me a month largely free to write, and in that precious time I was able to draft what became the first fifty pages.

The book that started it all...

But the origins of my crime fiction debut go back a lot further, to the 1990s in fact. I was working as a comics editor in London, but couldn't resist the lure of bookshops in the English capital. One day I wandered into a shop near the British Museum, just browsing in kill some times, with no idea what I might find there.

One book caught my eye: Criminal Justice and Crime in Late Renaissance Florence 1537-1609, by John K. Brackett. Published by Cambridge University Press, it was a monograph that did what it said on the cover, exploring criminal justice in 16th Century Florence.

Glancing through the text, one sentence leapt out at me. Writing about the Otto di Guardia e Balia, the most powerful criminal court in Florence, Brackett wrote that this law enforcement organization with its investigating officers and constables was 'roughly comparable to that of a modern police force'.

In moments my writer's brain was working overtime, imagining what a police procedural set in late Renaissance Florence might be like. How did criminal justice work in this period? What was crime like in the 16th Century? What sort of mysteries would law enforcers have to solve?

I bought the Brackett book and set to reading it on my way home. One thing quickly became apparent: I would need to do an awful lot more research before I could dream of attempting to write such a novel. I hadn't even visited the city of Florence back then.

My heavily annotated copy of Brackett's inspirational book!

The fact I didn't start writing CITY OF VENGEANCE until 2017 tells you how long the journey has been to see this novel approach fruition, and why its publication by Pan Macmillan means so much to me. But I owe a debt of thanks to John K Brackett and his monograph, which started me along the path that lead to creating Cesare Aldo...

News: I've signed a two-book deal with Pan Macmillan for my Cesare Aldo historical mystery series set in late Renaissance Florence

I'll be blogging more about this soon, but here's the  press release text as featured by British publishing industry weekly The Bookseller today:

Pan Mac scoops historical crime novel in two-book deal 

Pan Macmillan has landed the first novel in a historical crime fiction series from D V Bishop.

Alex Saunders, fiction editor at Pan Macmillan acquired world rights to City of Vengeance, which won the Pitch Perfect competition at Bloody Scotland 2018, in a two-book deal from Jenny Brown at Jenny Brown Associates. It is scheduled for publication in February 2021.

The book is set against the backdrop of the Medici dynasty in 1530s Renaissance Florence, following the case of a prominent Jewish moneylender who is found murdered. Cesare Aldo, a former soldier and now an officer of the city's most powerful criminal court, is given four days to solve the murder.

Its synopsis explains: “In the course of his investigations, Aldo uncovers a plot to overthrow the ruler of Florence, Alessandro de' Medici. If the Duke falls, it will endanger the whole city. But a rival officer of the court is trying to uncover the secrets of Aldo’s private life to bring him down. Can Aldo stop the conspiracy before anyone else dies, or will his own secrets destroy him first?”

Saunders said: “I am so excited to be welcoming D V Bishop to the Pan Macmillan list. He has written a wonderful historical thriller set in Renaissance Florence and from the moment I started reading I was impressed by his confident storytelling. City of Vengeance is an explosive start to an electrifying new series, and Cesare Aldo is a remarkable character who stays with you long after the final page has been turned.”

Bishop, a screenwriter and dramatist, added: “I’m proud and honoured to sign with Pan Macmillan, publisher of such wonderful writers as C J Sansom, Ann Cleeves, and the late, great Colin Dexter. There couldn’t be a better home for Cesare Aldo as he investigates murders, the Medici, and all manner of Machiavellian machinations among the palazzos and piazzas of Renaissance Florence.”