Bookstore Main Categories

Ancient Roman fictional works...
Author: Lindsey Davis
Minotaur Books
When Marcus Didius Falco encounters the young and very pretty Sosia Camillina in the Forum, he senses immediately that there is something amiss. When she confesses that she is fleeing for her life, Falco offers to help her and, in doing so, he gets himself mixed up in a deadly plot involving stolen ingots, dangerous and dark political machinations, and, most hazardous of all, one Helena Justina, a brash, indominable senator's daughter connected to the very traitors that Falco has sworn to expose.

Author: Lindsey Davis
Minotaur Books
"Some men are born lucky, others are called Didius Falco."

Shadows in Bronze -- It's the first century CE in Rome and informer and occasional imperial agent Marcus Didius Falco is miserable. The high-born woman he fell in love with, Helena Justina, has broken off their stormy, impossible affair. So when Emperor Vespasian assigns Falco a task that will take him out of Rome, he can't wait. Disguised as vacationer in the company of his comrade Petronius Longus, captain of the Aventine Watch, Falco travels south to Neapolis, Capreae and Pompeii where he discovers a conspiracy involving the Egyptian grain shipment to Rome. He also stumbles across Helena Justina, conveniently also on a trip out of town, who might, unwittingly, be enmeshed in this dangerous, treasonous scheme.

Author: Lindsey Davis
min
Rome, AD 71. Marcus Didius Falco is desperate to leave the notorious Lautumiae prison - though being bailed out by his mother is a slight indignity...

Venus in Copper -- Things go from bad to worse though when a group of nouveau riche ex-slaves hire him to outwit a fortune-hunting redhead, whose husbands have a habit of dying accidently, leaving him up against a female contortionist, her extra-friendly snake, indigestible cakes and rent racketeers. And, all the while, trying to lure Helena Justina to live with him, a dangerous proposition given the notorius instability of Roman real estate. In a case of murder as complicated as he ever faced, this classic tale shows Falco at his very finest.

Author: Lindsey Davis
Minotaur Books
The Iron Hand of Mars -- When Germanic troops in the service of the Empire begin to rebel, and a Roman general disappears, Emperor Vespasian turns to the one man he can trust: Marcus Didius Falco, a private informer whose rates are low enough that even the stingy Vespasian is willing to pay them. To Falco, an undercover tour of Germania is an assignment from Hades. On a journey that only a stoic could survive, Falco meets with disarray, torture, and murder. His one hope: in the northern forest lives a powerful Druid priestess who perhaps can be persuaded to cease her anti-Rome activities and work for peace. Which Falco is eagerly hoping for as, back in Rome, the Titus Caesar is busy trying to make time with Helena Justina, a senator's daughter and Falco's girlfriend.

Author: Lindsey Davis
‎ Fawcett; 1st Edition
Poseidon's Gold -- After six months in wild Germania, imperial gumshoe Marcus Didius Falco is back in Rome sweet Rome. But his apartment has been ransacked. And although he desperately needs 400,000 sesterces in order to marry his aristocratic love, Helena, his only client is his mother, who insists that he find out whether the scandalous claims against his dead brother, Festus, are true. Then the chief tarnisher of Festus's good name is murdered, and Marcus becomes the prime suspect. Someone is definitely fiddling with the scales of justice. The more Marcus hunts for the thread that will lead him out of this doom-laden labyrinth of misery and mystery, the less his life is worth. Except, as seems likely, as a meal for the Emperor's hungry lions...

Author: Lindsey Davis
Mysterious Press (4th edition)
Last Act in Palmyra -- It's AD 72 Rome, and Emperor Vesparian refuses to elevate sometime sleuth Marcus Didius Falco to the middle rank. Yet hope springs eternal, so when Vespasian's chief spy offers Falco an assignment in the East, he jumps at the chance. But his new assignment soon becomes a nightmare when he finds the corpse of a Roman playwright in a sacred pool. To ferret out the murderer, Falco joins the traveling theater group.

Author: Lindsey Davis
Warner Books
Time to Depart -- Balbinus Pius, the most notorious gangster in Emperor Vespasian's Rome, has been convicted of a capital crime at last. A quirk of Roman law, however, allows citizens condemned to death "time to depart" and find exile outside the empire. Now as every hoodlum in Rome scrambles to take over Balbinus' operations, private eye Marcus Didius Falco has to deal with an unprecedented wave of crime--and the sneaking suspicion that Balbinus' exile may not really be so permanent after all.

Author: Lindsey Davis
Grand Central Publishing; Reprint edition
A Dying Light in Corduba -- Marcus Didius Falco is ready to make new contacts and start a new career, and a dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica seems like the perfect opportunity. But when two dinner guests are found beaten--one dead--Falco knows he cannot rest until he solves at least one more mystery.

Author: Lindsey Davis
Warner Books
Someone was going to get killed. One glance at the narrow eyes of the leopardess told me she had decided it would not be her.

Two for the Lions -- Marcus Didius Falco is on special assignment for the Emperor Vespasian. This time he's tracking down tax fraud among the bestiarii, the slaughterers, and the lanistae, the suppliers of the gladiators and animals who provide the executions, spectacles, and entertainment for the Roman masses. Hoisted by his own tarnished petard, Falco is unwillingly partnered with his ex-boss Anacrites, Rome's chief spy, but that's the least of his problems; his investigation has hardly begun when he finds himself in the tunnels under the arena with a lion named Leonidas--a man-killer who may or may not have been switched with a tamer beast for a private party meant to impress a wealthy Senator's mistress. While Leonidas presents no immediate threat to Falco--the king of the jungle is quite dead--the circumstances of the beast's demise lead Falco to ponder a connection between a murderous feud that seems to have broken out in the ranks of the lanistae and the lucrative contracts soon to be let by the emperor for his magnificent new amphitheater. And when the most popular gladiator in Rome is killed--not in the arena, as might be expected, but while sleeping in his own bed--Falco and his patrician lover Helena take passage to Tripoli to track down the perpetrator. Along the way, they attempt to solve a domestic crisis involving Helena's youngest brother, who seems to be right in the middle of the African connection between the murders of man and beast, as well as the feud between two powerful lanistae. And there's still another reason to embark on a journey to the Dark Continent--the search for an extinct variety of wild garlic, which could make Falco a wealthy man and which ends with a hilarious denouement.

Author: Lindsey Davis
Mysterious Press
Three Hands in the Fountain -- In vino, veritas. But in the water supply of Rome, horroras Marcus Didius Falco is about to find out. Sharing an ewer of Spanish red with his old friend and new partner Petronius Longus, Falco is on the spot when a man cleaning the local fountain makes a gruesome discovery: a human hand. Small and evidently female, the hand suggests its owner met a terrifying fate. Naturally, Falco and Petro, formerly of the Vigiles, want to seize on it as their first big case. The officials of Rome, however, prefer to hush up the incident, since a population that riots at the drop of a toga might run wild if body parts are polluting their drinking water. Soon other delicate, dismembered hands are being found in Rome's two hundred miles of aqueduct. Now aided, inspired, and given critical clues by his wife, Helena, Falco & Partner are ready to buck the status quo and even butt heads with Falco's old boss, Chief Spy Anacrites, to crack the case. But O, Hades! The duo suspects a serial killer is at large, linked topublic festivals, and likely to strike again at the upcoming Roman Games. Even a detective as astute as Falco may not spot a twisted mind in a crowd of 250,000. And if Falco loses this race with time, another pretty victim will make a deadly splash...

Author: Lindsey Davis
Arrow
One Virgin Too Many -- A frightened child approaches Roman informer Marcus Didius Falco, pleading for help. Nobody believes Gaia's story that a relation wants to kill her, and neither does he. Beset by his own family troubles, by his new responsibilities as Procurator of the Sacred Poultry, and by the continuing search for a new partner, he turns her away. Immediately he regrets it. Gaia has been selected as the new Vestal Virgin, and when she disappears, Falco is officially asked to investigate. Finding Gaia is then a race against time, ending in Falco's most terrifying exploit yet.

Author: Lindsey Davis
Arrow
Ode to a Banker -- In the long, hot Roman summer of AD74, Marcus Didius Falco, private informer and spare-time poet, gives a reading for his family and friends. Things get out of hand as usual. The event is taken over by Aurelius Chrysippus, a wealthy Greek banker and patron to a group of struggling writers, who offers to publish Falco's work — a golden opportunity that rapidly palls. A visit to the Chrysippus scriptorium implicates him in a gruesome literary murder, so when Petronius Longus, the over-worked vigiles enquiry chief, commissions him to investigate, Falco is forced to accept. In the long, hot Roman summer of AD74, Marcus Didius Falco, private informer and spare-time poet, gives a reading for his family and friends. Things get out of hand as usual. The event is taken over by Aurelius Chrysippus, a wealthy Greek banker and patron to a group of struggling writers, who offers to publish Falco's work — a golden opportunity that rapidly palls. A visit to the Chrysippus scriptorium implicates him in a gruesome literary murder, so when Petronius Longus, the over-worked vigiles enquiry chief, commissions him to investigate, Falco is forced to accept.

Author: Lindsey Davis
Mysterious Press
A Body in the Bath House -- With his entire family in tow, including wife, two children, and a sister whose spurned lover's plans for revenge have put her life in danger, Marcus Didius Falco, the Roman Emperor Vespasian's smart-aleck PI, follows two unsavory building contractors suspected of murder to a barbarous, uncivilized outpost of the Empire--the south coast of Britain, where its Great King, his royal architect, and an officious project manager are building a magnificent palace. Since Vespasian is paying for it, he's charged Falco with making sure Rome's money isn't being wasted, as well as with tracking down the suspects--two jobs that morph into one as the body count keeps rising.

Author: Lindsey Davis
Mysterious Press
The Jupiter Myth -- Marcus Didius Falco continues with a classic noir tale of gangsters, gladiators, and romance. For Falco, an attempt at relaxing while visiting his wife Helena's relatives in Britain turns serious when a murder is discovered. King Togidubnus, the renegade henchman of Rome's vital ally, has been stuffed head-first down a barroom well-leading to a tricky diplomatic situation which Falco must defuse. Making matters worse, the town has become a magnet for criminals from Rome...and one murder leads to others. With the army turning a blind eye, Falco and his partner Petronius must lead the hunt for gangsters intent on taking over the city. From the wharves beside the River Thamesis to the old haunts of organized crime back home in Italy, Falco and Petronius face danger and death in every corner. Will they be able to return order to the city before they lose everything they hold dear?

Author: Lindsey Davis
Mysterious Press
The Accusers — In an effort to resume his career as an informer on his home turf, Falco ends up playing advocate in a messy dispute that pits him against two highly successful "legals," Paccius Africanus and Silius Italicus. The convoluted case, which involves a wealthy, fractious family and tricky questions of inheritance, gives Davis the opportunity to explore the vagaries of Roman law, which she approaches with her usual mix of respect and sarcasm. The corruption conviction of senator Rubirius Metellus followed by his mysterious demise threaten the Metelli family's fortunes. Hired to prove the senator's death was not a suicide, Falco finds himself immersed in scandal, blackmail, corruption and intrigue — common ingredients of legal practice. In one particularly fine scene, Falco delivers a speech in the Basilica that relies on amusing and effective rhetorical tricks.

Author: Lindsey Davis
Mysterious Press
Scandal Takes a Holiday — As an "informer"" — a private detective--Marcus Didius Falco has an insider's knowledge of the Empire's less than glorious side. He's also been in the middle of its most dangerous secrets more than once. So when he's hired to find notorious gossip "scribe" Infamia, Marcus figures the missing muckraker is either taking advantage of a vacation bribe from some wealthy wife — or resting up from injuries inflicted by some senator's henchmen. But instead of earning an easy fee, Marcus soon finds himself at odds against a sinister ring of pirates preying on the wealthy; a ruthlessly-vulgar construction magnate...and several of his own less-than-reputable family members. And what he uncovers will lead him through the dark byways and underground of the Empire's busiest seaport where a cold-blooded killer with nothing to lose waits to bury one cynical informer for good...

Author: Lindsey Davis
St. Martin's Paperbacks
See Delphi and Die — It's A.D. 76 during the reign of Vespasian, and Marcus Didius Falco, a Roman "informer," has achieved much in his life. He's joined the equestrian rank, allowing him to marry Helena Justina, the Senator's beloved daughter. But now he's just been hired to undergo a dangerous mission: to pry his brother-in-law Aulus, a scholar on the way to study in Athens, away from a murder investigation involving two dead women at the ancient site of the Olympic Games. Traveling to Greece under the guise of being tourists, Falco and Helena visit the country's classic sites in order to investigate the suspicious goings-on and shady dealings of Seven Sights, a fly-by-night travel agency. What begins as a risky expedition becomes sinister when Aulus, too, goes missing in what becomes Falco's most complex and high-stakes case yet.

Author: Lindsey Davis
Minotaur Books
Alexandria — In first century A.D. Rome, during the reign of Vespasian, Marcus Didius Falco works as a private informer, often for the emperor, ferreting out hidden truths and bringing villains to ground. But even informers take vacations with their wives, so in A.D. 77, Falco and his wife, Helena Justina, with others in tow, travel to Alexandria, Egypt. But they aren't there long before Falco finds himself in the midst of nefarious doings — when the Librarian of the great library is found dead, under suspicious circumstances. Falco quickly finds himself on the trail of dodgy doings, malfeasance, deadly professional rivalry, more bodies and the lowest of the low — book thieves! As the bodies pile up, it's up to Falco to untangle this horrible mess and restore order to a disordered universe.

Author: Lindsey Davis
St. Martin's Paperbacks
Saturnalia — It's 76 A.D. during the reign of Vespasian and the Roman festival of Saturnalia is getting underway. The days are short; the nights are for wild parties. But not for informer Marcus Didius Falco. His job is to uncover unwelcome truths and deal with sensitive situations, frequently at the behest of the imperial government. So when a general's famous female conquest escapes from house arrest — leaving a horrendous murder in her wake — Falco is on the case. If finding a fugitive isn't enough of a Zeus-like headache, Falco's wife Helena Justina's brother has also gone missing. Against the riotous backdrop of the season of misrule and merriment, the search seems impossible. And Falco seems to be the only one who notices that some dark agency is bringing death to the city streets.

Author: Lindsey Davis
Minotaur Books
Nemisis — In the high summer of A.D. 77, Roman informer Marcus Didius Falco is beset by personal problems. Newly bereaved and facing unexpected upheavals in his life, it is a relief for him to consider someone else's misfortunes. A middle-aged couple who supplied statues to his father, Geminus, have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. They had an old feud with a bunch of notorious freedmen, the Claudii, who live rough in the pestilential Pontine Marshes, terrorizing the neighborhood. When a mutilated corpse turns up near Rome, Falco and his vigiles friend Petronius investigate, even though it means traveling in the dread marshes. But just as they are making progress, the Chief Spy, Anacrites, snatches their case away from them. As his rivalry with Falco escalates, he makes false overtures of friendship, but fails to cover up the fact that the violent Claudii have acquired corrupt protection at the highest level. Making further enquiries after they have been warned off can only be dangerous — but when did that stop Falco and Petronius?

Author: Lindsey Davis
Random House UK
Falco: The Official Companion — As the girl came running up the steps, I decided she was wearing far too many clothes...So, in 1989, readers were introduced to Marcus Didius Falco, the Roman informer, as he stood on the steps of the Temple of Saturn, looking out across the Forum: the heart of his world. Twenty years and twenty books later, Falco fans want a companion volume. Only here will you learn the author's private background, including her descent from a failed assassin and how atheism improved her knitting. Here too are the real glories and heartache involved in research and creation: why the baby had to be born in Barcelona, which plots evolved from intense loathing of management trainees, what part a thermal vest played in the iconic Falco's conception. It can't be a complete handbook to ancient Rome, but it covers perennial issues. There are a hundred illustrations, some specially commissioned, others from family archives. Enlightening quotations come from the Falco books and from eminent sources: Juvenal, through Chandler, to 1066 and All That. Readers have asked for this book. Their paranoid, secretive author agrees it is now or never. This is time to spill beans on the travertine...

Author: John Maddox Roberts
Minotaur Books
In this Edgar Award-nominated mystery, John Maddox Roberts takes readers back to a Rome filled with violence and evil. Vicious gangs ruled the streets of Crassus and Pompey, routinely preying on plebeian and patrician alike, so the garroting of a lowly ex-slaved and the disembowelment of a foreign merchant in the dangerous Subura district seemed of little consequence to the Roman hierarchy. But Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger--highborn commander of the local vigiles--was determined to investigate. Despite official apathy, brazen bribes, and sinister threates, Decius uncovers a world of corruption at the highest levels of his government that threatens to destroy him and the government he serves.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
Minotaur Books
It was a summer of glorious triumph for the mighty Roman Republic. Her invincible legions had brought all foreign enemies to their knees. But in Rome there was no peace. The streets were flooded with the blood of murdered citizens, and there were rumors of more atrocities to come. Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger was convinced a conspiracy existed to overthrow the government-a sinister cabal that could only be destroyed from within. But admission into the traitorous society of evil carried a grim price: the life of Decius's closest friend...and maybe his own.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
Minotaur Books
When a sacret woman's rite in the ancient city of Rome is infiltrated by a corrupt patrician dressed in female garb, it falls to Senator Decuis Caecilius Metellus the Younger, whose investigative skills have proven indispensable in the past, to unmask the perpetrators. When four brutal slayings follow, Decius enlists the help a notorious and dangerous criminal. Together, they establish a connection between the sacrilege and the murders, and track the offenders from the lowest dregs of society to the prominent elite of the upper class, finding corruption and violence where Decius least expects it.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
Minotaur Books
When Roman junior senator Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger has a chance to join a diplomatic mission to Alexandria, he welcomes the opportunity to temporarily elude his enemies in the Eternal City-even though it means leaving his beloved Rome. Decius is just beginning to enjoy the outpost's many exotic pleasures when the suspicious death of an irascible philosopher occurs, coinciding with the puzzling and apocalyptic ravings of a charismatic cult leader. Intrigued, Decius requests and is given permission by the Egyptian Pharaoh to investigate the heinous crime. What he discovers is beyond shocking. And when the corpse of a famous courtesan mysteriously turns up in his bed, Decius suddenly finds himself entangled in a web of conspiracy far more widespread and dangerous than he ever imagined-one that threatens to bring about the downfall of the entire Empire.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
St. Martin's Griffin
Every culture has its wild entertainment, but the Roman Saturnalia is looked upon as the granddaddy of them all. Roberts's vivid fictional account of the annual event takes place in first century Rome is a historically correct picture of excess, with the city's ordinary life shut down, all rules and most laws inoperative, and even slaves permitted to celebrate without restraint. At the same time, the noted family of Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger have reluctantly summoned the young playboy, banished to the island of Rhodes for his wild ways, to seek his help in solving a crime that touches them directly and dangerously. They need him to use his investigative talents to look into the poison death of a politically powerful relative and the suspicion that it is the man's wife who administered the dose. Decius, convinced she is innocent (of this murder, at any rate) looks further for the killer---a quest that leads him to a secret, banned cult of witchcraft being practiced by highborn Romans of both sexes. With the witches at his heels, Decius plunges into the maelstrom of Rome at the height of Saturnalia, and barely escapes with his life.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
St. Martin's Griffin
Like so many young men in later generations, Roman playboy/detective Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger is faced with the necessity of serving in his country's armed forces. Since a dangerous enemy has become powerful in the politics of Rome, Decius is just as well out of the city for a while. He sets out to join Caesar in Gaul, where the general has come and seen, but has as yet not been able to conquer. The occupying Roman army is at a standstill when Decius shows up in full parade regalia (much to the amusement of the more informally uniformed veterans) and accompanied only by his young personal slave. Caesar sets him the task of discovering who murdered one of his centurions, a cruel and unfair officer feared and hated by every man of the one hundred soldiers under him. A further prod to Decius is that the main suspect is a youth whose father is a close friend of the Metellus family. With Caesar's decree that another killer be found in a matter of hours or the young man dies, Decius has his work cut out for him. John Maddox Roberts's series set in the first century A.D. vividly brings to readers a strong sense of the everyday life of the ancient Romans in the context of our own.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
Minotaur Books
Decius Caecilius Metellus is happy. The weather is beautiful and he is standing for office (literally; standing, in the Roman Forum soliciting votes) with a sure chance of winning. And Caesar's ongoing dreary war is far off in Gaul. Decius is confident that another war looming over Rome, instigated by one Crassus against the Parthians (for no reason but possible worldly gain); will be voted down in the Senate. But the vote does not stop Crassus. On the day he and his troops set out from Rome, the Tribune Ateius Capitus, leader of the opposition, shrieks an ancient and terrible curse over the huge crowd assembled -- a curse that frightens not only the man in the street but the highest Romans. When Ateius is murdered soon after, Decius, solver of past mysteries, has the ugly task of finding the killer. Fascinating details of Rome's mixed attitudes about the power of magic and the practice of rational politics illuminate this latest of Roberts's strong historical mysteries.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
Minotaur Books
Ancient Rome, in this accurate and evocative series, is just as politics driven as any major American city -- possibly even more. Decius Caecilius Metellus has, through a series of rather wild adventure, and in the act of tracking down killers and other reprobates, barely escaped annhilation several times. Now, newly elected to the office of aedile, the lowest rung on the ladder of Roman authority, he must smoke out corruption and conspiracy that threaten to destroy all of Rome.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
Minotaur Books
As I walked back through the City, my mood was moderately elevated. This appointment did not displease me nearly as much as I pretended. Like most Romans I abhorred the very thought of sea duty, but this was one of the rare occasions when I was looking forward to getting away from Rome..... For years I had complained of the disorder of the City, and now that it was gone, I found that I missed it. All the peace and quiet seemed unnatural. I did not expect it to last.

Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger in SPQR IX: The Princess and the Pirates

His two years of aedileship over, Decius is ready for his next adventure. He would rather do anything than join the war with Caesar in the dismal forests of Gaul, so he and his slave/protégé Hermes find themselves on a mission to rid the Mediterranean of pirates. They set off with shoddy ships and sailors to the island of Cyprus, where a young Cleopatra is staying. Between her impressive crew and the ex-pirate Ariston providing insider knowledge of that cutthroat occupation, Decius thinks he stands a good chance of bringing himself some glory.

That would be too simple, though. The ruler of the island, Silvanus, is murdered in a most peculiar fashion and Decius, as a guest in his home, has a sacred duty to find and punish the guilty party. Because world relations are already strained, he would rather not suspect Cleopatra, heir to the Egyptian throne. But she has plenty of reasons to hate Rome and murder runs in her family. Another guest and suspect is Gabinius, who is in exile and could have easily given up loyalty toward his friend if it meant a quicker return to Rome. In the meantime, Decius is being humiliated in his pirate hunt, and as if this weren't enough, Aphrodite herself seeks Decius's help by appearing to him in a dream vision. As Decius investigates world trade, the island history, and the new kind of piracy plaguing the waters, he is finding connections more menacing than he had ever imagined possible.

In this ninth book in the series, Roberts crafts another skillful mystery, this time fervently pulsing with the collision of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian interests.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
Minotaur Books
Being under suspicion of murder did not hamper my freedom. This is because Romans are civilized people and don't clap suspects into prison like barbarians do. It would take an order of a lawfully convened court even to place me under house arrest.

That's Decius Caecilius Metellus speaking — Senator Decius Caecilius Metellus, please. He is at an outdoor rally in Rome where he is campaigning for election to the praetorship. It looks like a shoo-in, until a man named Fulvius, of whom Decius has never heard, arrives at the preelection proceedings with a small army of hoodlums and begins to shout to the assembled voters that Decius is a thief and worse. While this is not an unknown effort used to ruin a candidate's chances, it is enough to have Decius's father call a meeting of family and friends — a meeting that ends with the participants going home determined to find some answers to stop Fulvius's efforts to ruin Decius's chances.

Early the next morning, however, as Decius and his friends are on their way to the trial, Fulvius's body is found slashed to death on the steps of the basilica, where the court will be sitting. And that doesn't look good for our hero.

For those readers who have met Decius before, the next step is clear: the man is a brilliant detective, and he is certainly now in a position where that skill is needed. So it's doubly important for Decius, with the help of his wife, Julia, and the ex-slave Hermes, to find the solution to the most personal — and possibly most difficult — puzzle that has come his way.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
Minotaur Books
In SPQR XI: Under Vesuvius, things are going well for Decius Caecilius Metellus. He is Praetor Peregrinus, which means he has to judge a case or two, but those cases are outside of the City. His cases will be those dealing with foreigners, and all of Italy is his province. His first stop is Campania, "Italy's most popular resort district." Decius and his wife, Julia, are happy for a change of scenery. But the good times end when, in a town near Vesuvius, a priest's daughter is murdered. Decius must find her killer and keep the mob off a young boy who everyone blames but he believes to be innocent. Decius may have acquired more prestige, but he's also acquired more trouble. With his SPQR novels, John Maddox Roberts has written a satisfying and entertaining historical mystery series. The stakes just keep getting higher in this latest atmospheric puzzle.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
Minotaur Books
Caius Julius Caesar, now Dictator of Rome, has decided to revise the Roman calendar, which has become out of sync with the seasons. As if this weren't already an unpopular move, Caesar has brought in astronomers and astrologers from abroad, including Egyptians, Greeks, Indians and Persians. Decius is appointed to oversee this project, which he knows rankles the Roman public: "To be told by a pack of Chaldeans and Egyptians how to conduct their duties towards the gods was intolerable." Not long after the new calendar project begins, two of the foreigners are murdered. Decius begins his investigations and, as the body count increases, it seems that an Indian fortuneteller popular with patrician Roman ladies is also involved. This latest in the acclaimed series is sure to please historical mystery fans.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
Minotaur Books
Decius Caecilius Metellus, this year's magistrate for cases involving foreigners, is living the good life in southern Italy, happy to be away from Rome, a city suffering war jitters over Caesar's impending actions. He thinks he is merely visiting one of the local sights when he takes a party to visit the Oracle of the Dead, a pre-Roman cult site located at the end of a tunnel dug beneath a temple of Apollo. He quickly learns that there is a bitter rivalry between the priests of Apollo and those of Hecate, who guard the oracle. When the priests of Apollo are all killed, the countryside looks to explode in violence as Greeks, Romans and native Italians of several conquered nations bring out old enmities. Decius is caught squarely in the middle, desperate to find a way out that will pacify the district and, incidentally, save his own skin. This riveting series began with the Edgar Award-nominated SPQR and has gone on to international success in 13 languages.

Author: John Maddox Roberts
Minotaur Books
Caius Julius Caesar, now Dictator of Rome, has decided to revise the Roman calendar, which has become out of sync with the seasons. As if this weren't already an unpopular move, Caesar has brought in astronomers and astrologers from abroad, including Egyptians, Greeks, Indians and Persians. Decius is appointed to oversee this project, which he knows rankles the Roman public: "To be told by a pack of Chaldeans and Egyptians how to conduct their duties towards the gods was intolerable." Not long after the new calendar project begins, two of the foreigners are murdered. Decius begins his investigations and, as the body count increases, it seems that an Indian fortuneteller popular with patrician Roman ladies is also involved. This latest in the acclaimed series is sure to please historical mystery fans.

Author: Simon Scarrow
St. Martin's Griffin
It is the year 42 AD, and Centurion Macro, battle-scarred and fearless, is in the heart of Germany with the Second Legion, the toughest in the Roman army. Cato, a new recruit and the newly appointed second-in-command to Macro, will have more to prove than most. In a bloody skirmish with local tribes, Cato gets his first chance to prove that he's more than a callow, privileged youth. As their next campaign takes them to a land of unparalleled barbarity - Britain - a special mission unfolds, thrusting Cato and Macro headlong into a conspiracy that threatens to topple the Emperor himself. Filled with the kind of historical details that brings the adventure to life, Simon Scarrow's Under the Eagle is destined to become a military fiction classic.


©2015 reenactor.Net and Sturmkatze Produktions AG
Don't be a thief, just ask!