Murder at the Agora

An orator is stabbed before a crowd in Athens. The city sees a murder. Nikandros sees a warning.

Theoros had dared to ask who profited from the tribute paid by Athens’ allies—and who was allowed to call himself Athenian. Nikandros, a grain merchant’s son, came to hear him speak. He leaves the Agora with blood on his cloak and a lead curse tablet scratched with four names. One of them appears in his father’s accounts.

The magistrate needs a witness. Nikandros has become something more dangerous: a man concealing evidence while he tries to learn whom he can trust with it. His search leads from the crowded market to the ships of Piraeus, through merchant ledgers, frightened testimony, and the rivalries of men who claim to speak for the city. Each answer puts someone else at risk.

To find Theoros’s killer, Nikandros must discover what the dead man knew—and decide whether he can bring it into the open without destroying his own family.

The Murder at the Agora begins the Athenian Mystery series, a historical crime story set in fifth-century BCE Athens.