All about the fourth book in the historical thriller series

Who is D.V. Bishop?

D. V. BISHOP writes the award-winning Cesare Aldo historical thrillers, published by Pan Macmillan. A writer of many narrative forms, his love for Italy and the Renaissance meant there could only be one setting for his crime fiction

What is A Divine Fury about?

Florence. Autumn, 1539.

Cesare Aldo was once an officer for the city’s most feared criminal court. Following a period of exile, he is back – but demoted to night patrol, when only the drunk and the dangerous roam the streets.

Chasing a suspect in the rain, Aldo discovers a horrifying scene beneath Michelangelo’s statue of David. Lifeless eyes gaze from the face of a man whose body has been posed as if crucified. It’s clear the killer had religious motives.

When more bodies appear, Aldo believes an unholy murderer is stalking the citizens of Florence. Watching. Hunting. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike again . . .

Interview

What inspired your book? 

A Divine Fury was inspired by a passing comment made by a walking tour guide while I visiting Florence for research. We were wandering through Oltrarno, an area south of the river Arno in the city, and the guide mentioned there was a church nearby where exorcisms were performed on a Wednesday! My writer’s instinct made me stop and ask them to repeat what was said. They insisted exorcisms were happening in the 21st Century in the church of San Felice (Saint Felix), and had taken place there for centuries.

The Aldo novels are set in the 1530s when the Church had enormous influence across the Italian peninsula. Florence was focused on banking and merchants, but the Church was still a major power there. What if there were a series of religious murders (serial killings we would call them now) and all the evidence led toward the church of San Felice, where priests perform the sacrament of exorcism? That became the basis for A Divine Fury.

I have visited San Felice since writing the book but I’ve never been in Florence on a Wednesday so I still don’t know if the guide was right about the exorcisms

What drew you to writing? 

Reading, and having an over-active imagination. Honestly, if I don’t write by brain starts to overload. My dreams become really, really vivid. Sooner or later, I have to start writing again, just to drain the brain. It’s an intrinsic part of who I am.

How did you choose which character to centre the story around? 

A Divine Fury is the fourth book in my historical thriller series set in Renaissance Italy, but it can totally be read as a standalone. I have a returning protagonist in each novel, Cesare Aldo, so the story is always centred around him. He investigates murders for the Otto, the most feared and powerful court in Florence during the 1530s. But Aldo is also a gay man at a time and place in history where that is a crime, potentially punishable by death. That means Aldo upholds and enforces the law yet he also lives on the wrong side of the law, making him an outside. His constant challenge is never knowing who to trust with his secrets.

What was your process for writing your book? 

I spend a lot of time thinking before I start drafting. Most of the pre-writing happens in my head, not on the page. Once I’ve identified when the story is taking place, I will research those dates in history, what was happening, what is the context for my narrative. I’ll also dig into research specific to aspects of this particular story, such as how did exorcisms work in the 1530s? Were they like that scary film from the 1970s or half the films Russell Crowe seems to make these days? (Short answer: nope. Exorcisms did not have a standard litany or methodology until later in the 16th Century, so it was an individual approach and vibes.)

When it’s time to begin a draft, I start at the beginning and write to the end. I set myself a weekly word count goal and a monthly word count target. I used to have daily word count targets but if I missed one it put too much pressure on the days that followed and threatened to create a guilt spiral which isn’t helpful. Having a weekly target means I give myself leeway to catch up later, and a monthly target acknowledges there will be times when some weeks are unproductive due to illness, workload elsewhere, being busy promoting previous books, having a holiday (it does happen sometimes) or life otherwise getting in the way.

I write in five acts and aim to complete an act a month, roughly 20,000 words each. At the end of each act, I print it out and read the text aloud, marking the edits and corrections. Then I make notes on who did what when, who knows what, and how the main characters feel about those events. This enables me to focus on credible characters motivations while making a rough bullet point plot beat plan for the next act, rather than forcing my cast to do things simply to fulfil some pre-conceived plotline I have already devised.

This method usually means I can complete a rough first draft in five or six months, and it is usually in pretty good shape. After a cut and polish, that goes to my editor and agent for their thoughts. I will make a list of fixes that need doing while waiting for my edit letter so I can get a head-start on the structural edits and be figuring out solutions in a timely fashion.

What is your approach to world and character-building? 

A Divine Fury is the fourth Cesare Aldo historical thriller, so most of my world-building for Renaissance Florence is constructed atop the cumulative research I have already done on that city-state in the 1530s. Next year’s book, Carnival of Lies, takes Aldo to Renaissance Venice so that meant I had a whole new city to research and world-build on the page. I read a shelf full of books to discover more about the time and place, takes notes about useful facts and historical oddities for a reference document I construct as a memory aid (saves me going back through all my books to find a single, helpful fact). I’m also looking for little nuggets of information, passing comments and observations that help bring alive the setting in print.

Luckily for me, I won a round-trip plane ticket last year so I used that to visit Venice and walk round for three days, researching the city and what must have been like to live there five hundred years ago. The street sweepers still use brooms made of twigs, just as they did in 1539, but I’m guessing they didn’t have Amazon Prime delivery boats back then… Going to Venice for research was a huge privilege and it made a big difference to Carnival of Lies.

In terms of character-building, A Divine Fury introduces a new frenemy for Aldo – Contessa Valentine Coltello. She is Venice’s spymaster in Florence, and is a fun character to write. Coltello was originally inspired by Glenn Close’s portrayal of the Marquise de Merteuil in the 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons, but she has blossomed into her own character as I have been writing her. I constructed a complete personal history for Coltello, although little of that has been activated as backstory on the page – yet. Knowing who she is, who she was and how she came to be the character we meet in print significantly informs how I write her. Honestly, I became utterly besotted with the contessa, she threatened to steal the book away from Aldo! I am seriously considering giving the character her own spin-off novel.

Did you have a favourite moment in the book to write? 

Every scene between Aldo and the contessa was a joy. If I was getting bogged down while writing A Divine Fury, I devised a new Coltello scene and it immediately brightened my mood, my prose and the book as a whole. Aldo may be gay, but such is the power of the contessa that even he finds himself attracted to her. She is a true siren…

Which of the characters do you relate to the most and why? 

Inevitably, tiny parts of me are embedded in most of the character; as a writer you can’t help letting fragments of your thoughts, beliefs and sins creep into your prose. Aldo is far braver and bolder than me, but he also has my worst tendencies when it comes to burning bridges or antagonising authority figures, especially those who he does not respect. I would love to be the contessa, she has the best time and always wins the day, no matter the obstacles.

Has writing and publishing a book changed the way you see yourself? 

My first novel was published in 1993, so long ago that I wrote it on an electric typewriter between 5am and 7am in a cold London flat (couldn’t afford a personal computer at the time). That was a Judge Dredd novel, based on the popular comics character from iconic British science fiction weekly anthology 2000AD. When the book came out, nobody noticed, nobody cared and it certainly didn’t get reviewed anywhere. But I wrote another, and another, and then moved on to write out licensed tie-in novels based on the likes of Doctor Who, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Games Workshop’s Warhammer universe. Those were my apprenticeship as a writer, learning my craft on the job.

It was only when I started writing original fiction with the Cesare Aldo historical thrillers that I felt like a real author. The fact they’ve won prizes like the Crime Writers’ Association Historical Dagger and the Ngaio Marsh Award is lovely, but really it was about proving to myself I could write novels with my own characters and concepts was the real breakthrough.

Are there any books or authors that inspired you to become a writer? 

So many! I was a voracious reader growing up in Aotearoa New Zealand, always getting in trouble with the library for trying to take out more books than I was allowed. I got addicted to mystery stories by reading the Famous Five and the Hardy Boys, but it was the novelistic style of TV cop show Hill Street Blues that sealed my fate. Loved the ensemble cast of characters, the sheer humanity of its stories, and the deft tonal balance of drama and humour.

What advice would you give to a writer working on their first book, and what advice were you given? 

Finish a first draft before trying to fix or polish it; you don’t see marathon runners got back to re-do mile six and seven because they could do those better. Also, get comfortable with the fact your first book might never get published, but what you learn from writing and completing it will make you a better writer.

Oddly, I didn’t get a lot of advice when I was starting out. This was before the internet – yes, I’m that old – so there wasn’t a non-stop flood of advice available 24/7. I didn’t know any novelists and, when I did meet some, it never occurred to ask for advice. My early books were based on everything I’d ever read and my blissful ignorance.

What’s your favourite writing snack or drink? 

Coffee, couldn’t survive without that. Love a can of L&P when I need a burst of sugar.

Do you play music while you write — and, if so, what’s your favourite music? 

I will find a particular piece of music that matches the mood of what I’m going to write and then play that on repeat while writing for however long the book takes to draft. There can’t be any English words as they will distract me, so I tend to choose film scores. While writing A Divine Fury, I built a playlist of two scores: Dangerous Liaisons by George Fenton, and The Ignorance of Blood by Federico Jusid. The first is quite playful, the second very moody.

Who has been the biggest supporter of your writing?

My long suffering partner. They put up with my moods, my staring into the distance while thinking about story, and me getting up pre-dawn to write because my brain won’t shut up.