The Roman civil war has come to its conclusion: Pompey is dead, Egypt is firmly under the control of Cleopatra, and Julius Caesar has returned to Rome. The city abounds with rumors that Caesar will be made king. Gordianus, recently returned from Egypt with his wife Bethesda, is essentially retired from his previous profession of “finder,” but he cannot refuse the call of Calpurnia, Caesar’s wife. Troubled by prophecies of disaster and fearing for Caesar’s life, she had hired someone to investigate the rumors. But that person, who was a close friend of Gordianus, has turned up murdered on her doorstep. Calpurnia wants Gordianus to protect Caesar’s life before it is too late. Gordianus agrees to help, but only to find the murderer of his friend. Once an investigation is begun, however, there’s no controlling what it will turn up, who it will put in danger, or where it will end.
Steven Saylor is a freelance writer, editor, and the author of novels set in ancient Rome. He studied history at the University of Texas at Austin. Saylor’s writing has appeared in the Threepenny Review, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He lives in Berkeley, California, and Austin, Texas.
Geoffrey Howard (a.k.a. Ralph Cosham) (1936–2014) was a British journalist who changed careers to become a narrator and screen and stage actor. He performed in more than one hundred professional theatrical roles. His audiobook narrations were named “Audio Best of the Year” by Publishers Weekly, and he won seven AudioFile Earphones Awards, and in 2013 he won the coveted Audie Award for Best Mystery Narration for his reading of Louise Penny’s The Beautiful Mystery.