Pasquale’s Angel

Pasquale’s Angel by Paul J. McAuley is set in an alternative Renaissance where Leonardo da Vinci, known as the Great Engineer in the novel, concentrates his efforts more on his inventions than his art with the result that he almost single handedly launches the industrial revolution a few hundred years earlier than it happened. Almost overnight what would have been the great artists of the Renaissance are are overshadowed by the new inventions. The novel is a murder mystery where someone in Raphael’s household is killed and the protagonist Pasquale gets involved in the investigation along with Machiavelli who is a journalist in Florence! It should be noted that Pasquale’s Angel is also the recipient of the Philip K. Dick award in Science Fiction.