Ritual of Fire

Florence, summer 1538. A wealthy merchant is found hanged and burning in the city’s main square, killed in deliberate imitation of Girolamo Savonarola’s execution forty years earlier. With Cesare Aldo pursuing thieves in the Tuscan countryside, Carlo Strocchi begins the investigation and must determine whether the murder signals the return of Savonarola’s surviving followers or conceals a more personal reckoning.

A second public burning drives merchants from the city as heat, fear and religious fervour intensify. The victims are connected to men whose influence was forged during the violent final years of Savonarola’s movement, while danger follows Aldo beyond Florence into the estates where the wealthy have sought refuge. The two officers must combine their enquiries before the killer turns an old political memory into a new campaign of punishment.