Florence, 1537, and the Convent of Santa Maria Magdalena is in uproar. Cesare Aldo had been asked to investigate reports of attempted intruders to the convent, but things take a very dark turn when a body is discovered, stabbed multiple times and covered in an unnatural amount of blood. Oh, and it also is the one thing that should not be in the convent – a man!

As Aldo conspires to get permission to investigate, his partner Constable Strocchi finds the body of an officer who has been missing since winter (and the end of City Of Vengeance) and takes charge of the investigation into his death. But finding the killer might only be the start of the problem…

So this is the second of the Cesare Aldo titles – the fifth is out this summer, and as I’ve got a review e-copy, I’d better get on and read the rest of the series. I briefly met D V Bishop at Stockport Noir where he was part of an excellent talk on historical mysteries. The first in the series, City Of Vengeance, was a thriller, really, rather than a mystery, and did a lot of scene-setting for the series, diving as it did into the political situation of Florence at the time, as well as Aldo’s personal situation and the problems that it causes.

The second strand continues in this book, given how the previous book ended, with Strocchi’s investigation. Given that Aldo is in the convent for the majority of the book, this gives time for Strocchi to come into his own, as he makes discoveries about the crime and the motivations for the crime and has to decide what to do about them.

As for the convent mystery, there’s a lot going on here, but I did think it was a little drawn out. There’s quite a bit of nuns refusing to answer questions which works logically as Aldo doesn’t really have any authority to insist but dramatically, I did feel that the mystery element here was going round in circles a tad towards the end.

But the strength of these books is Aldo and his battles of all descriptions. He is one of the best constructed leads you could find in mystery fiction and reading about him is an absolute delight. Add in a pretty decent mystery and you can see why this won the Historical Dagger. Looking forward to Book Three…