Novels in Florence #33: The Florentine Revenge

Every city has its secrets and every crime its retribution. On a scorching summer afternoon in the suburbs of Florence, a small girl goes missing at a crowded swimming pool and is never seen alive again. For fifteen years a terrible crime lies unsolved, becoming one of the city's darkest and most shameful secrets, until one bitter winter night another body is found, at another swimming pool, and the case is reopened. Celia Donnelly had just arrived in Florence at the time of the girl's disappearance and can remember only too well the face that filled the front pages of every Italian newspaper. When word of the gruesome new discovery breaks, she is in the midst of arranging a weekend of birthday celebrations for a wealthy Englishman's wife. However, as Celia undertakes what ought to be a routine work assignment, she finds herself more closely involved than she could have ever imagined with a tragedy that has haunted her dreams for fifteen years; and it is Celia who is compelled to bear witness when the past returns to exact a brutal and terrifying revenge.(from book jacket).

A Florentine Revenge, Christobel Kent, Penguin, 2006

Novels in Florence # 32: The Florentine

 

This short historical novel traces the life of Leonardo da Vinci from the time of his birth in 1452, through to his death in 1519. It focuses on Leonardo the person rather than specific achievements with a rare focus on his childhood and early development. In reality little detail is known about Leonardo’s childhood other than his actual birthplace and parents, but the book takes what is known and has been published about his early years by L.H. Heydenriech and G. Vasari and then places the reader in the home of Leonardo the child.

His early development years are also dealt with in the same style in order that the reader gets to know Leonardo the Young man and later the troubled artist, anatomist, thinker and engineer.

All Leonardo’s major accomplishments from the Virgin of the Rocks to Mona Lisa in painting, the Sforza horse in sculpture, his anatomical experiments and engineering drawings are dealt with. His ongoing interest and contribution to flight is included and even the famous letter to Ludovico Sforza is included. Thus the book is historically and biographically accurate, but primarily the book brings Leonardo to life and places the reader there amongst the action that surrounded one of histories great original thinkers. Kevin Streat was born and raised in rural New Zealand. He has lived and worked in differing countries for the last 30 years. He and his Canadian wife now call Cooroy in Queensland Home. (from jacket notes)

The Florentine, Kevin Streat, Createspace, 2012