The River God's Vengeance (SPQR VIII) - Softcover

Roberts, John Maddox

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312323204 ISBN 13: 9780312323202

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2005

Synopsis

He would rise up as savior of the State, but Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger already has a lot on his mind. In the year of his aedileship, Decius is expected to stage elaborate and expensive games out of his own pocket. Along with his duties of pleasing the crowds with the feats of gladiators and wild beasts, are the more practical, and commonly neglected, ones of maintaining the city and its laws. It is these more mundane duties that call him to the scene of a recently built and more recently collapsed tenement building. Determined to punish the greedy parties who used cheap materials and caused the deaths of hundreds, Decius sets out to exact justice. It is easier said than done, especially when bodies and evidence go missing, and his family pressures him to cease the investigation. As he seeks out the politicians, philosophers, and tradesmen of the day, it becomes clear that the collapse of the building was deliberate, and Decius could be going after some of the most powerful men in Rome.

In this eighth installment of the series, Roberts once again provides authentic detail in the everyday Roman customs, as well as a fascinating picture of the growing unsteadiness of this famed Republic.

About this title

About the Author:

John Maddox Roberts is the author of numerous works of science fiction and fantasy. He and his wife live in New Mexico.

From Publishers Weekly:

In Roberts's entertaining, fast-paced Roman historical, his eighth to feature Decius Caecilius Metellus (after 2003's The Tribune's Curse), Decius has just become an aedile, a city manager responsible for overseeing urban infrastructure, when he's summoned to a fatal building collapse that claims more than 200 lives. While the evidence of shoddy workmanship is consistent with the pervasive but tolerated corruption in the construction trade, Decius's trained investigative eye notes anomalies on several of the corpses; he risks his political future and his life to follow the clues. His powerful family's efforts to navigate the treacherous shifting alliances that preceded Julius Caesar's return from the Gallic Wars add to the pressures the aedile faces. Once again, Roberts does a nice job of bringing the past to life, though his scholarship and detail fall short of Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa series, which serves as the gold standard for ancient historicals. Despite the small universe of suspects and a solution involving nearly as much luck as dogged legwork, the book's many fine qualities should boost the ranks of Roberts's readers and send newcomers in search of the previous entries.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0312323204
• ISBN 13: 9780312323202
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304