3 "so much to admire, extremely interesting, way too Hollywood" stars !!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and Pan Macmillan for an e-copy. I am providing an honest review. This was released February 2021.

A warm mention to Paromjit whose stellar review made me want to read this immediately. GR buddy Maureen also left a very enthusiastic four star review which also propelled me further.

I am considering presenting this book to my writing circle in the Autumn so will do this review in point form format to allow the ideas to take hold in my little brain and give them time to grow.

What was absolutely stellar :

1. subject matter was incredibly interesting...a historical crime fiction of the murder of Duke Alessandro de Medici (who was likely mixed race) in 1536 Florence over the period of about 10 days
2. the book was INCREDIBLY well plotted with a logical and fascinating sequence of events...the author left no string hanging and the foreshadowing and layout were unbelievably excellent...(all these terrible chick lit thriller writers have so much to learn about this)
3. the exploration of misogyny, homophobia and anti-semitism as sub-themes in this book was both welcome and educational...the stakes were so high for unprotected women, men who desired love with other men and the Jewish communities in general.
4. the ability of the writer to keep track of a very large cast of characters and make them distinct for the writer while providing a general sociology to understanding social status, the church and the functioning of political bureaucracies as well as exploring to some degree both police forces and bordellos
5. the careful seeding of the plot to lay out future instalments of this series...both interesting and enticing
6. the book cover is five star amazing !

What was troublesome and needed huge improvements:

1. the main characters could have been etched much more deeply with some exploration of their internal conflicts and personality functioning
2. as fascinating as this was this felt rather anachronistic to appease general readers
3. the physical fighting felt more Pirates of the Caribbean than true historical content....at times became so slapstick that it was just DAMN SILLY
4. the dialogue when humor was included was so cheezy that it gave me that really bad kind of gas

Preferentially I would also liked more political and family intrigue, some delicious heterosexual sex and a deepening of the gay romance (these were not deal breakers for me just minor quibbles).

Aspects of this were so bloody amazing that I want to continue but I really dislike slapstick and cheezy humor. I will compromise and longlist and see what happens.

1536 Travelling to Florence, Cesare Aldo, law enforcer, and Samuels Levi, are attacked but survive. Although late Levi is murdered in his home and Aldo is given four days to find the guilty party. But this is not the only murder the Otto need to investigate. But political intrigue and secrets seem to be everywhere.
A entertaining and well-written historical mystery, I found the characters to be likeable in the main especially that of the complex Aldo. A good start to the series which I look forward to reading the next.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.