Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
|||
Showing 1 - 8 of 8 matches in All Departments
Decius Caecilius Metellus, this year's magistrate for cases
involving foreigners, thinks he is merely visiting one of the local
attractions of southern Italy 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. But there is a bitter
rivalry between the priests of Apollo and those of Hecate, who
guard the oracle, and when the priests are all killed, the
countryside looks to explode in violence as Greeks, Romans, and
native Italians of several conquered nations bring out old
enmities.
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 fortune-teller popular with patrician Roman ladies is also involved. Decius figures out the fortune-teller's scam and also exposes the foreign astrologer who carried out these murders--almost losing his life in the process. This latest in the acclaimed series is sure to please historical mystery fans.
Things are going well for Decius Caecilius Metellus. He is "praetor peregrinus, " which means he has to judge a case or two outside Rome. His first stop is Campania, "Italy's most popular resort district." He 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 whom 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.
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.
"I was happier than any mere mortal has a right to be and I should
have known better. The entire body of received mythology and every
last Greek tragedy ever written have made one inescapable truth
utterly clear: If you are supremely happy, the gods have it in for
you. They don't like for mortals to be happy, and they will make
you pay."
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.
His two years of aedileship over, Decius is ready for his next
adventure. He would rather do anything than join the war with
Caesar, so he and 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.
|
You may like...
|