The Darkest Sin is available from the TCF shop where profits will support independent book retailers and this website and podcast.

In this second book of the Ceaser Aldo series we meet our troubled hero once again in Florence. A few months from the events of the last book Aldo, used to navigating the political undercurrents of the city, is flung into a new mystery when, very scandalously the body of naked man is found in a convent the male church hierarchy wish to shut down due, to the fact it controversially helps women escape violent husband, and gives medicines and alms the poor. What would Jesus do? In the mean-time past events from previous instalment, City of Vengeance, are getting closer and closer to catching up with Aldo, and could threaten the glimmers of hope in his life for both love and some kind of family.

DV Bishop has managed to riff on the crime classic of a locked room mystery, and do something different by reversing it, while balancing the pace of the mystery with pleasing development of previous characters, as well as introducing us to a host of new ones and future possibilities. A detective and nun duo solving crime is certainly intriguing!

It is the slow building of a sense of place, time and people over a series of novels that allows one the same sense of emotional investment as one would have to Ellis Peters, or Lindsey Davis. For historical crime fans this is going to be the new must-read series. Bishop however adds an ominous undertone, with the fact that as readers we all know however much this is fiction, sooner or later, Aldo’s past is likely to catch up with him, but I for one, hope there are many, many books before we get too close to seeing our hero’s downfall.

You can listen to my previous interview with DV Bishop below.