Please note a slight change in the timing of the event with Philip Gwynne Jones and Gregory Dowling at Studium in Venice on October 13. This will now start at 6pm, not 6.30 as originally stated. More details here.
Tag: Venice

History is full of murders, most of them documented by people who weren’t there, and were often writing hundred years after the events they chronicle with such apparent confidence. History’s full of holes too, lacunae open to any number of ideas and theories. The assassination of Julius Caesar, the killings of the princes in the Tower of London, even, more recently, the shooting of John F. Kennedy still raise questions in people’s minds, and any number of conspiracies.
The slaying of Lorenzino de’ Medici, one of the lesser figures in the clan that was effectively the royal family of Florence and Tuscany, is rather different. Almost five centuries on we still have a first-hand account of how Lorenzino was hunted down in the dark streets of Venice in winter, cornered on the Ponte San Tomà in San Polo below and stabbed to death.

The Medici Murders is out in the UK and the US in hardback next week (October 4), the first in what I hope will become a long-running series set in Venice and featuring a very unusual protagonist. It’s time I issued what I suspect, in the language of the day, ought to be called a trigger warning. If it’s one of those lightning-paced, breathless, heart-pounding read-in-a-flash thrillers you’re after, you should probably look elsewhere.
With this book, and those that follow with the same characters, I’m out to do something different.
You can get a glimpse of what I’m going to talk about when I tell you Arnold Clover, the protagonist, is a newly retired civil servant from the National Archives at Kew outside London. A quiet, intelligent, inquisitive man with a name I picked because I wanted something a million miles from a standard action hero.
The Medici Murders is out in the UK and the US in hardback next week (October 4), the first in what I hope will become a long-running series set in Venice and featuring a very unusual protagonist. It’s time I issued what I suspect, in the language of the day, ought to be called a trigger warning. If it’s one of those lightning-paced, breathless, heart-pounding read-in-a-flash thrillers you’re after, you should probably look elsewhere.
With this book, and those that follow with the same characters, I’m out to do something different.
You can get a glimpse of what I’m going to talk about when I tell you Arnold Clover, the protagonist, is a newly retired civil servant from the National Archives at Kew outside London. A quiet, intelligent, inquisitive man with a name I picked because I wanted something a million miles from a standard action hero.
The Medici Murders is out in the UK and the US in hardback next week (October 4), the first in what I hope will become a long-running series set in Venice and featuring a very unusual protagonist. It’s time I issued what I suspect, in the language of the day, ought to be called a trigger warning. If it’s one of those lightning-paced, breathless, heart-pounding read-in-a-flash thrillers you’re after, you should probably look elsewhere.
With this book, and those that follow with the same characters, I’m out to do something different.
You can get a glimpse of what I’m going to talk about when I tell you Arnold Clover, the protagonist, is a newly retired civil servant from the National Archives at Kew outside London. A quiet, intelligent, inquisitive man with a name I picked because I wanted something a million miles from a standard action hero.
The Medici Murders is out in the UK and the US in hardback next week (October 4), the first in what I hope will become a long-running series set in Venice and featuring a very unusual protagonist. It’s time I issued what I suspect, in the language of the day, ought to be called a trigger warning. If it’s one of those lightning-paced, breathless, heart-pounding read-in-a-flash thrillers you’re after, you should probably look elsewhere.
With this book, and those that follow with the same characters, I’m out to do something different.
You can get a glimpse of what I’m going to talk about when I tell you Arnold Clover, the protagonist, is a newly retired civil servant from the National Archives at Kew outside London. A quiet, intelligent, inquisitive man with a name I picked because I wanted something a million miles from a standard action hero.
The Medici Murders on NetGalley now

The start of a new series of history mysteries set in contemporary Venice but very much with a glance at the past… coming your way October 4 in the UK and US from Severn House, mass market paperback from Canongate next year.
And now there’s the chance to review an advance copy. You’ll find the book on NetGalley for authorised reviewers now. Just go here. The Medici Murders | David Hewson | 9781448306565 | NetGalley
I’ll be writing a bit more about the book closer to release. And look for audio news soon too.