Ritual of Fire #3 Cesaro Aldo

Longlisted for the 2023 McIlvanney Prize

A thrilling and atmospheric new historical crime novel, set during a scorching Italian summer in 1530s Renaissance Florence, by award-winner D. V. Bishop. Ritual of Fire is the third book in the acclaimed Cesare Aldo series, following City of Vengeance and The Darkest Sin, winner of the 2023 CWA Historical Dagger Award.

Florence, 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 ritual 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, while someone is stalking 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.