Tales not told
My initial ideas for Aldo number four
Welcome to the free newsletter of David (D. V.) Bishop, author of the Cesare Aldo historical thrillers set in Renaissance Italy. This time I’m talking about the story ideas I set aside while deciding what to write as my fourth Aldo novel…
A Divine Fury in paperback
The fourth Cesare Aldo novel A Divine Fury is just three weeks away from being published in paperback on January 2nd, 2025. It features murders with a religious element as a serial killer stalks the streets of Renaissance Florence…
But that wasn’t the story I originally planned to write. I developed several other plotlines before settling on what became A Divine Fury. At first, I mulled a story about the exploitation of child in Florentine orphanages. But that seemed a better case for Strocchi than Aldo, so it never got beyond some notions in my head.
Instead I set to work developing a story that kept the focus fully on Aldo. Here is an exclusive peak behind the curtain of my process as I reveal the first story concept I set down in a working document to discuss with my agent:
Take One
Photo by Il Vagabiondo on Unsplash
Book Four: Florence. Autumn, 1539.
Cosimo de’ Medici appears secure as Duke of Florence, Aldo is happy with his own life, and his venomous stepmother Lucrezia is finally dying. For once there seems good reason to hope – but hope can be dangerous thing.
Aldo is enlisted by Cosimo to hunt those behind a secret vendetta against his rule as Duke. An influential guild leader is strangled to death at the bordello where Aldo lives, making Signora Robustelli and her women suspects in the killing. And Lucrezia Fioravanti uses her last breath to hiss a devasting accusation about her late husband, Aldo’s beloved father.
Can Aldo uncover the truth about his own past, prove the innocence of the bordello’s women, and stop those conspiring to topple the Duke? It will push Aldo to his limits, and beyond…
That had potential, but to me it seemed a lot like three raccoons in a trench coat, trying to pass themselves off as a person – lots of bits and pieces, yet not enough substance. I put it to one side and started again, developing this version instead:
Take Two
Photo by Sebastian Bill on Unsplash
Book Four: Florence. Autumn, 1539.
Cesare Aldo is back in Florence, doing what he does best - hunting criminals for the Otto. His venomous stepmother Lucrezia is finally dying, giving Aldo hope of a reunion with his estranged family. But hope can be a dangerous thing in the cradle of the Renaissance...
Aldo discovers someone is killing Florentine men who prefer the company of other men. The latest victim’s family refuse to speak out, and the case is far from a priority for the Otto. Aldo fears the killer is getting a taste for their work – if so, there will soon be another body.
Lucrezia uses her last breath to hiss a devastating accusation about her late husband, Aldo’s beloved father. Before Aldo can find whether that is true, the strangled corpse of an important guild leader is left by the statue of David, along with a note taunting the Otto for its failures.
With the court’s future in the balance, Aldo and Constable Carlo Strocchi must race against time to stop the murders before any more victims are claimed. Aldo risks his own life to lurethe killer into the open, but they have another target in mind: Aldo’s lover Saul…
If you’ve read A Divine Fury, you will know fragments of this made it into the fourth Aldo. For example, the published book opens with him discovered a strangled corpse by Michelangelo’s statue of David, but it is a quite different story thereafter.
Writing the fourth Aldo was challenging. I’d had a very clear idea of what was going to happen during its immediate predecessor, Ritual of Fire. Indeed, I was so excited for that I almost wrote it as my second Aldo novel. But I knew there needed to be something different between City of Vengeance and Ritual of Fire, another kind of story to establish the breadth and range of what an Aldo story could be.
The hard work of writing A Divine Fury paid off, with it becoming a finalist for this year’s McIlvanney Prize and getting chosen as a historical fiction book of the month by The Times newspaper in June. It currently has the highest ranking of all my Aldo novels with readers and reviewers. I wonder, can next year’s book top it?
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