Praise for One for Sorrow... "An enticing picture of sixth-century Byzantium...and the traffic in holy artifacts [in] the early history of Christianity." -Publishers Weekly In Byzantium, the capital of the 6th century Roman Empire, annual games are held to celebrate the founding of the city. Several courtiers, obliged by office to attend, idly watch the chariot races and the bear baiting from the imperial box. Suddenly they--and the crowd-are electrified as a magnificent bull surges into the arena. Those who worship Mithra make quiet reverance to the sacred animal while a trio of bull leapers enters in his wake. John, Lord Chamberlain to the Christian Emperor, is among those surprised into breathing tribute. He soon receives a further shock: surely the lovely young girl vaulting the beast had once been his lover. Later, making his way home through the thronged streets, John stumbles over the body of his friend Leukos, Keeper of the Plate. There are plenty of witnesses: an Egyptian brothel keeper, a young mason working on the Church of the Holy Wisdom, a mad stylite, a henpecked innkeeper, and the bull leapers from Crete. Now duty and guilt demand that John discover the murderer.... The husband and wife team of Mary Reed and Eric Mayer published One for Sorrow, their first full-length novel featuring John, Lord Chamberlain to Emperor Justinian, in 1999. The series has since received much praise and several awards, including the Arizona Book Award, the IPPY Best Mystery Award, and the Bruce Alexander History Mystery Award. home.earthlink.net/~maywrite

That's the mystery Emperor Justinian in-explicably sends his Lord Chamberlain John the Eunuch to solve, at the very time John desperately needs to clear himself of accusations he murdered a senator in the Hippodrome.
Mehenopolis, a pilgrim destination thanks to its ancient shrine to a snake deity as well as the home of the late sheep, is nearly as byzantine in its ways and undercurrents as Constantinople.
Among suspicious characters John encounters are a pretentious local landowner battling a self-styled magician for control of the lucrative shrine, an exiled heretical cleric, an itinerant bee-keeper, and a disgraced charioteer. Meanwhile, in Constantinople, John's good friend Anatolius does his best to trace the senator's murderer.
At stake are not only John's honor and his head, but also the family with whom he recently reunited, now in danger of being broken apartor worse.

"A finely nuanced historical...with a plot of great subtlety....Those who appreciate strong historical backgrounds and solid plotting will get their money's worth." -Publishers Weekly "Stocking their novels with period arcana, palace intrigue and more than a few curious complications...Reed and Mayer have created a distinctive historical series that has yet to disappoint." â -January Magazine It's 539 AD, and John the Lord Chamberlain finds his investigations hampered by squabbling courtiers, servants with social ambitions, an eccentric host, and an egotistic inventor-not to mention a herd of prophesying goats and a protective whale. The Mithran Anatolius and the excubitor captain Felix only add to John's worries when they fall under the spell of two ambitious women. Can the trio avoid Theodora's wrath as they work to protect a child and stop a heartless killer? Does the solution lie within the villa where all have assembled, back in Constantinople, or in some other world altogether? The acclaimed historical series featuring John, Lord Chamberlain to the Emperor Justinian, has brought husband and wife team Mary Reed and Eric Mayer much praise and several awards. In 2003, Booklist Magazine named the novels one of its four Best Little Known Series. http://home.epix.net/~maywrite

Ambition, intrigue, treachery, murder-another Byzantine mystery... 548 CE, Constantinople. The emperor Justinian, distraught from the death of his wife Theodora, has exiled John, the Lord Chamberlain. Soon after, an Egyptian magician tries to raise the empress from the dead. The unholy ceremony goes awry, and in the aftermath, supposed demons vanish into the night along with one of the city's holiest relics. Felix, Captain of the Palace Guard, is selected as John's successor and charged with recovering the artifact. But it seems as if half the city wants to possess the relic, see Felix dead-or both. Worse still, Felix's friend, the shrewd John, has already sailed for Greece. Now Felix enters a fight for his very survival, a crucible in which he cannot cannot tell friend from foe-or worldly dangers from the supernatural. The husband and wife team of Mary Reed and Eric Mayer co-author the award-winning John, Lord Chamberlain, historical mysteries set in 6th century Byzantium. http: //home.earthlink.net/ maywrite/