The Florentine Mourners

About the Book

A Renaissance mystery featuring Leonardo da Vinci and his companion, Niccolo da Pavia, as they join together in Florence to solve the mystery of two assassinations and widespread vandalisms of artworks involving the Borgias and the exiled Medici family. (Third of a series)

About the Author

George Herman is the author of over one hundred produced and/or published plays. His "A Company of Wayward Saints" won the McKnight Foundation Humanities Award in Drama in 1964 and is published by Samuel French. "Mr. Highpockets," the Lincoln story told as an American myth, and "A Stone For Either Hand," the life of Gandhi as played on a modern American stage by an Indian folk troupe, both won first prizes in international competitions. Other prize-winning plays include two childrens' plays, "The Hidden Place" and "Nine Dragons," and the dramas, "The Man In The Cordoban Hat," "Pious Nine Is Falling Down," and "The King Has Gone To Tenebrae."

In 1994, Mr. Herman completed the first of his historical novels, Carnival of Saints, which was published the following year. The novel was named a finalist in fiction in the Oregon Book Awards and a national finalist in the Barnes And Noble Discover Great New Writers program. The first two books in his Renaissance mystery series featuring Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo da Pavia, A Comedy of Murders and The Tears of the Madonna, were published in 1994 and 1996.

Mr. Herman holds a Bachelor of Philosophy degree from Loyola College in Maryland, a Master of Fine Arts degree from Catholic University, and studied theatre at the Boston College School of Expressional Arts under the Rector's scholarship in playwrighting. He has been a professional stage and screen actor and director, and for 16 years he was a resident of the Hawaiian Islands where he served as a drama critic for the Honolulu Advertiser, a theatre columnist for Honolulu magazine, and artistic director for the Commedia Repertory Company. He currently resides in Portland, Oregon.