Arms of Nemesis Mystery of Acient Rome

The hideously disfigured body was found in the atrium. The only clues are a blood-soaked cloak, and, carved into the stone at the corpse's feet, the word Sparta. The murdered man was the overseer of Marcus Crassus's estate, apparently killed by two runaway slaves bent on joining Spartacus's revolt. In response to the murder, the wealthy, powerful Crassus vows to honor an ancient law and kill his ninety-nine remaining slaves in three days. Now Gordianus the Finder has been summoned from Rome by a mysterious client to find out the truth about the murder before the three days are up.Enmeshed in a world of desperate slaves and duplicitous masters, extravagant feasts and sordid secrets, Gordianus must risk all he loves, including his life, to stop a senseless slaughter-and save the very future of Rome itself.

My high school Latin teacher -- Sister Ethelreda, are you out there in cyberspace? -- enthralled her class for four years with her tales of ancient Rome, from culinary trivia to the deeds of the noble generals and the great Roman patriots. It was her hope, as she said, not only to teach us this beautiful language but to be able to bring to life for us the people who formed the vibrant culture that was Rome's. I heard an echo of her words many years later when I read THE FAR ARENA, in which the protagonist wished earnestly to be able to turn a doorknob in time and find the Roman behind the door.

With Steven Saylor's mysteries, we have that Roman behind the door. Set in ancient Rome before the rise of Julius Caesar, these are not your usual cozy reads. His detective, Gordianus the Finder, seems a scruffy sort, not a noble Roman from the history books by any means, and his Rome is a rough-and-tumble place full of noisy street vendors and con artists as well as more well-to-do, upstanding citizens, a city full of gossip and intrigue and nasty politics as vicious as anything we see today. The noble Romans do appear in his books, of course, but they're a far cry from the bloodless statues who watch serenely from the covers of Latin books as students painstakingly translate their dry speeches. Marcus Tullius Cicero, for one, appears in CATILINA'S RIDDLE not as a statesman but as an underhanded schemer obsessed with destroying Lucius Sergius Catilina, who has gone down in history, rightly or wrongly, as a man who attempted to bring down the Roman Republic. You, the reader, will be left to judge.

--Margaret Sanborn, Senior Publicity Copywriter