1508, Rome; an abandoned ship is drifting in the mouth of the Tiber and a horrific discovery is found inside.
Nearly 300 men were packed together in the hold. All of them are dead.
They were migrant workers shipped over from North Africa, cheap labour to cut the cost of building St Peter’s Basilica, and all have died in the most horrendous circumstances.
The Vatican is desperate to distance itself from this atrocity. The guilty contractor must be found and punished, and the entire illegal trade in people must be stamped out.
The Pope charges his Head of Security, Domenico Falchoni, with conducting a full investigation.
Domenico turns to his scholar sister Cristina for help and together they delve into the grudges and rivalries of the old dynastic families who are competing for building contracts for the great basilica.
Cristina and Domenico discover that dirty tricks extend across all aspects of the great construction and corruption is rife. So it is not easy to find out who is responsible for the horrific deaths of the migrant workers.
Can they protect other workers from untimely deaths? Will they expose those responsible?
Or will digging into the dark world of human trafficking put their own lives at risk?
Carnival of Chaos by Richard Kurti is published on 11 April, 2025. It’s the fourth in his Basilica Diaries series.
You’ll find much more historical fiction in Historia’s round-up of over 160 books published this year.
