Aidan Conway Books In Order

Publication Order of DI Michael Rossi Books

Aidan Conway was born in Birmingham to Irish parents and has been living in Italy since 2001. He attended a state comprehensive school where he showed a flair for English and critical analysis before graduating from the University of Wales, Bangor, with a BA in English Literature. He subsequently worked in bookselling with Waterstones before going back into education to pursue a master’s degree at Queen’s University Belfast with a final dissertation on the work of Belfast writer Ciaran Carson. He had a series of summer and interim jobs, including working in bars, hotels and factories in his native Birmingham, and later as a bookseller with Waterstones. He was also a freelance proofreader for the Lagan Press in Belfast.

A period of travel saw him working in France as a language assistant before he embarked on a university career at Aston University in Birmingham teaching academic writing. This was followed by a spell as a language teacher in Sicily before he moved to Rome where he began working as a freelance language consultant, working with clients in the state broadcaster RAI and other public bodies and multinationals, as well as in the Italian parliament. After several years working with the UNFAO as a freelance teacher, translator and editor, Conway became an assistant university lecturer in Rome, where he currently lives with his family. He is a keen student of languages and is fluent in Italian with a good command of Spanish and French.

In 2014, he began work on what would be his first crime novel, A Known Evil, and the first novel in the DI Michael Rossi crime series. Published by Harper Collins ‘Killer Reads’ imprint in March 2018, the novel is set in contemporary Rome and Sicily and features Michael Rossi, a bilingual Detective Inspector on the Rome Serious Crime Squad. Rossi has mixed origins – an Irish grandfather, a Neapolitan father – and also spent a year studying for the priesthood before turning to the police force. As such, he is something of a misfit but has a tendency to get results thanks to his dogged determination and ability to see the bigger picture and take intuitive risks.

A Known Evil has been described by New York Times bestselling author Brian McGilloway as “A brilliantly dark crime debut, dripping with menace and atmosphere.” Other characters of note are Rossi’s partner Gigi Carrara, and the investigative journalist Dario Iannelli, to whom Rossi turns for insight and inspiration as he seeks to dig deeper into the origins of horrendous crimes which seem to be inspired by a dark political agenda and collusion between subversive elements in the state as well as in the Vatican. Rossi’s Ukrainian partner Yana, a spirited and successful entrepreneur, is also central to the story and the series.

A Cold Flame, the follow up novel, was published on 6 September 2018. The novel functions as a standalone but readers may enjoy it all the more after reading A Known Evil. It too is set in Rome and follows the fortunes of a Nigerian migrant, Jibril, against the backdrop of a suspicious and fatal house-fire and rising domestic political tensions amidst wider tumult in the mediterranean basin, the Syrian conflict, the immigration crisis. Domestic political manoeuvrings, drug trafficking, and an imminent terror threat all conspire to leave the city poised on the edge of catastrophe. A junior member of the RSCS, the brilliant and determined Katia Vanessi also makes her first appearance in A Cold Flame and soon becomes a key player in Rossi’s battles against the obscure forces vying for control of Rome and its lucrative illicit activities.

On the 3rd November Aidan Conway will be appearing at the MurderOne International Crime Writing Festival in Dublin where writers including Michael Connelly, Lynda La Plante, and Mark Billingham will also be featuring.