A Roman Mystery Series - Part V

Eyes of Aurora Review

Set against a disgusting murder reminiscent of the child-killing, brother-killing Medea of Greek tragedy, yet lightened by comic interludes and deft unraveling of clues, this snapshot of Roman social mores in the first century make this story worth your time if you're a fan of the Roman mystery genre.
Read more in my review of:

The Eyes of Aurora: A Fifth Case from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger
Albert A Bell Jr
Publication: September 9, 2014; Perseverance Press
ISBN 978-1-56474-549-1

Also see a quick take on Bell's Corpus Conundrum.

Medicus, by Ruth Downie

Ruth Downie's first novel, Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire came out in 2006. I read it for the first time in 2007. A new one is due out any time, so it is now or never if I am going to review it.

...

I looked at it for a few days. Read a page here and there thinking maybe I'd get the needed inspiration for a review. Trouble was, I couldn't remember it well enough. Not well enough to describe, yet it is a murder mystery and as such had an ending that I knew. I was reluctant to read it again because there should be no suspense.

I was wrong. True: Passages I remembered had made me anxious because I wanted the section to come to an end quickly passed more comfortably the second time. I don't think the passage was supposed to seem interminable, so perhaps my second read was the right one. A year's break let me remember who the bad guy was and that the good guy got a break in the end, but I forgot most details.

Good mystery fiction throws in clues along the way, but doesn't give it all away before the climax -- at least to mystery readers like me who enjoy being kept in suspense until the last minute. But mystery fiction that is re-readable has to offer more, especially since lots of people try to out-detect the sleuth. Good historical fiction pays close attention to the details of the setting, striving to make it historically plausible. It should also present sympathetic characters and wind up the reader's emotions.

As I've already mentioned, Downie does a very good job of tying the reader's stomach in knots. She presents a picture of Roman Britain that doesn't shout "anachronism" at the relatively well-informed reader. I am not certain that the aplomb with which the doctor handles a punctured lung is likely, but fortunately, I'm not a medic and so have little to go on in the area of what's medically accurate.

In addition, Downie has allied herself poetically with her prose to create an smoothly readable, humorous first novel about a recently divorced army doctor who comes to the wilds of Britain to serve Rome. Lacking the social skills his ex-wife guarded for the family and having a family secret he's afraid will be used to take advantage of him, the title's Medicus, Ruso, tries to stay in the background. He's not even the good-looking doctor, but he's still on call socially and as a care-taking sort, winds up looking into accidents a bit more deeply than the locals would like.

I can't predict whether Ruso will turn out to be another Falco or Ruth Downie another Lindsey Davis, but with all of the Roman Empire under the second century Good Emperors to explore, I'm looking forward to seeing lots more of Ruso and the Daughter of Lugh tackling medical issues and murders from their opposed, but sometimes complementary perspectives.

There! Now I can go order Ruth Downie's Terra Incognita.

The Big Bad Wolf, by James Patterson

Saturday, November 06, 2004

The Italian mafia may be able to trace its origins to the functional, extra-familial, patron-client institution of ancient Rome. There a needy client might look to his patron for food, money, or a job, in exchange for his support, vote, and help. Except for the modern focus on crime, the patron-client relationship isn't terribly different from today's paternalistic mafia-style relationships. The Russian mafiya of James Patterson, in The Big Bad Wolf, is a different beast entirely. Its primary goal appears to be capitalism -- which is ironic in that the origins of the mafiya are communist Russia -- and family loyalties mean next to nothing. Indeed, a mafiya member might be persuaded to transport a relative out of the motherland, but probably only if he wants to sell his poor cousin into a life of prostitution. That cousin might consider herself lucky, though, since, according to Patterson, prostitution is among the top five vocational choices of Russian school girls. It's unlikely, however, that there is a drop of altruism motivating the Wolf, who runs a prostitution slave ring, which the feds have named the '"White Girl' case," since its victims are mostly wealthy, blonde, suburban housewives -- and a studly young college student or two.

The unknown, mysterious Wolf is the current head of the mafiya. He and some of his cronies meet in a high security Internet chat room where the primary topic of discussion is the six-figure purchase of slaves. One of the active participants keeps running through his purchases. It's this disgusting sadist who becomes the chink in the chatroom's security.

There are two people who should share the credit for breaking the case. One of them, for obvious reasons, abjures the spotlight. She is a fourteen-year-old hacker who was aware of how serious her own crime was, but still put her concern for her own freedom aside when faced with the need to turn in the murderous white slavers. The other is the lead character, Alex Cross, an African-American psychologist who has switched from the police force to the FBI. His messed up personal life fills the contrasting sub-plot.

While Cross is said to have one serious flaw -- the ability to see a good side in everyone -- Patterson doesn't seem to share this trait. None of the Internet crew or the Wolf has a redeeming gene. None, that is, except the slave owner who freed his prisoner and then, filled with remorse, suicided. In contrast, the psychologist-detective can do no wrong, except in his relationships -- both business and personal. There he can't find a way to do his job to the best of his ability and satisfy those around him.

With stark black and white contrasts, The Big Bad Wolf grabs and holds the reader's attention. There may be some minor hanging threads -- like why isn't the hacker in more trouble -- but author James Patterson has written what will undoubtedly be another best seller.


The Big Bad Wolf
by James Patterson
Publication Date: November 2003
Little, Brown
ISBN 0316602906
400 Pages

Saturday, November 06, 2004

Scandal Takes A Holiday, by Lindsey Davis

Friday, November 12, 2004

In Scandal Takes a Holiday, by Lindsey Davis, Falco and family are back exploring the Roman Empire. Their destination is the port city of Ostia, whose current amenities, including public baths and a lavish latrine, were provided by the Emperor Claudius. Falco's two employees, the brothers of his wife Helena Justina, are unavailable. One is seen off to presumed adventures-to-come in Athens where he will be studying law and the other is attending to his own family. But Falco's old confederate Petro (Petronius) is working with the vigiles in Ostia, so when Falco shows up on a (temporarily) secret mission to locate "Infamia," a missing gossip columnist, he has a ready-made professional helper, as well as Falco's own well-read wife.

Petro is living in relative harmony with Falco's sister Maia and her brood, in fancy quarters provided by a member of the evidently corrupt building society. That means that Falco and his brood, which now includes his wife, their two children, and their sort of adopted teenage daughter Albia, can have Petro's assigned quarters at the Ostia patrol house. To create havoc, most living members of both Falco's and Helena's families drop by to visit the "vacationing" family.

Among other interesting liaisons is one between Falco's father, an antique dealer whose sources can't withstand too close scrutiny and the crazed brother of his estranged wife, Falco's mother. Uncle Fulvius was a mystery about whom little was said while Falco was growing up. He apparently got on the wrong ship and ended up who knows where or else he became a castrata in the service of Cybele. No one seems to know. Even when Falco winds up in far too close quarters with him in a cell on which initiates of the rites of Mithras endure the stinking drippings of a freshly slaughtered bull, Uncle Fulvius won't come out and say why Emperor Vespasian's chief informer Anacrites is so familiar to him nor whether his smuggling is officially sanctioned.

On the historical-social-political scene, Pompey the Great is mocked because of his boast that he had done away with pirates in no time flat. What happened to those pirates? What did they turn to when told off? It's not as if they could switch from piracy to carpentry or any other useful, remunerative craft. Obviously they had only limited skills with which to eke a livelihood and although it might not be officially called piracy any longer, its affects are much the same. Clearly, the missing gossip columnist had become embroiled with them or else he suffered at the hands of one of the corrupt members of the builder's guild. The trouble is that there is no visible sign of him and not even the "pirate" whose memoirs he was writing knows what has become of him.

Besides bringing the port city of Ostia to life, Lindsey Davis has presented a compelling picture of first century reformed pirates and the corruption of civic officials. Falco's family is, as always, completely untameable and unpredictable, while Falco himself seems to be slowing down and behaving himself now that he's middle class and approaching middle age, although it doesn't keep him from staying out all night without telling his wife.

Friday, November 12, 2004

Thieves' Dozen, by Donald E. Westlake

Friday, November 12, 2004

If a baker's dozen is thirteen, you can expect to be short-changed by a thief's dozen, but the disappointment wil be short-lived if the eleven stories are written by Donald E. Westlake about the almost luckless thief John Dortmunder. Actually, the introduction to Thieves' Dozen could count as a twelfth story. It provides a good introduction to the starring character and to Westlake's appealing deadpan humor.

In the first story, "Ask a Silly Question," Dortmunder is "asked" to provide advice to a would-be felon looking to protect his reputation in the face of the imminent revelation of the fraud he has perpetrated on his ex-wife. This wonderful misadventure is one of the few in which Dortmunder makes out like a bandit.

The second story, "Horse Laugh," introduces John Dortmunder to the equestrian world. A city boy, Dortmunder and his best friend, Andy Kelp, try to kidnap a breeding sire, with unpredictable complications.

In the third story, "Too Many Crooks," Dortmunder pretends to be John Diddums (he's Welsh), first a police officer, then a hostage. While Diddums' pretense falls apart under the nervous eyes of the hostage-holding bandits locked in a stand-off with the police surrounding the bank they've held up, Dortmunder's friend, Andy, turns the confusion to profit.

In "A Midsummer Daydream," John Dortmunder engages in a bit of sleuthing to save his hide from the charge of petty theft.

"The Dortmunder Workout" provides a character sketch of the O.J. Bar and Grill where Dortmunder and cronies are known by their preferred drinks.

"Party Animal" reveals Dortmunder's quick thinking, helpfulness, and ability to blend into the background.

In "Give Till It Hurts," the innocents figure out that Dortmunder is a wanted Roman coin thief and make him pay for it.

"Jumble Sale" introduces Arnie Albright, a fence who is so obnoxious he has to give good deals. Arnie is not stupid or unaware that people hate him and his understanding the nuances of social interactions lead him to spot a potential police sting operation.

"Now What?" presents a day in Dortmunder's life -- one in which he faces fire on the subway, a frantic ride in a taxi driven by a terrorist, and the narrow avoidance of another sting operation.

In "Art and Craft" an untrustworthy paroled con tries to persuade Dortmunder to help him in an insurance fraud.

In the final story, the alternate personas of Dortmunder and friends participate in a caper, reprising themes from "Too Many Crooks."

Most of the eleven capers in Thieves' Dozen are hilarious and provide a good preface to The Road to Ruin.


Thieves' Dozen
by Donald E. Westlake
Mysterious Press
April 2004
343 pages

Friday, November 12, 2004

The Road to Ruin, by Donald E. Westlake

Friday, November 12, 2004

The Road to Ruin is Donald E. Westlake's eleventh comic caper featuring wayward thief John Dortmunder, "someone whose slouching shoulders and hangdog expression would show in their best light in a police lineup."

If he's a thief, especially one who has been convicted before, does it really matter that he clearly looks the part? The answer is yes because in The Road to Ruin, he is trying to pass himself off as a butler. Both Dortmunder -- aka the butler Rumsey -- and his wealthy employer, Monroe Hall, who has recently narrowly escaped a jail term for Enron-style behavior, expect him to behave like a proper British, Stephen Fry-playing-Jeeves butler, but the clothing, in Dortmunder/Rumsey's case, an expensive, baggy, black suit and gunboat shoes, don't quite make the man. After Dortmunder/Rumsey faces Monroe Hall's contempt when he fails to realize he is expected to polish the master's shoes, he finally begins to understand why no one had wanted to work for Hall. But the fact that no one wants to work for Hall provides the opportunity to be hired that Dortmunder/Rumsey and his cronies need if they are going to swipe Hall's collection of cars. The trouble is that Hall has trod on so many toes that Dortmunder's group isn't the only one seeking to turn Hall into a cash cow.

The Road to Ruin is almost a comedy of errors. It is certainly very entertaining and a refreshing break from mystery stories where the plot revolves around the death of an innocent victim. There are no deaths in The Road to Ruin and there are no innocents, although some criminals are more sympathetic than others and when Monroe Hall gets what's coming to him, the person closest to an innocent character (although even she was guilty of helping Hall in his swindles), the first wife who looks like a second, the one person who stuck by him when everyone else considered him a pariah, is the one to suffer, sort of.

The Road to Ruin
by Donald E. Westlake
Mysterious Press
April 2004
343 pages

Friday, November 12, 2004

Murder Superior, by Jane Haddam

Sunday, November 14, 2004

In Murder Superior, by Jane Haddam, when wild Catholic school alumna Nancy Hare dumps a vase of flowers, green fertilizer, and water on the head of Mother Mary Bellarmine, no one thinks it undeserved. Of the thousands of sisters of the Divine Grace Order gathered for an international convention on Mother's Day, Mother Mary Bellarmine is the most hated. So much hostility towards her is evident that when the poisonous, if not properly cooked, Japanese fugu fish is discovered to be missing, the reader waits impatiently for Mother Bellarmine's murder. Then, when the well-loved, generous and compassionate Sister Joan Esther falls immobile into the arms of Gregor Demarkian, it looks like a mistake.

The Armenian-American sleuth Gregor Demarkian, former FBI agent and poison expert, is on the scene for both incidents because he has been invited to be a guest speaker at the convention. From this position, he witnesses the green water tumble down on Mother Bellarmine's head, and notices in the fracas, that her habit has been torn. He is also literally on hand when Sister Joan falls. This gives him a brief opportunity to evaluate the death -- enough to determine the cause was a nerve posion like fugu -- before he is rudely booted off the case by a young, incompetent Italian-American police detective, Jack Androcetti.


So great is Androcetti's jealousy and hatred for Demarkian that when he thinks Demarkian has re-insinuated himself into the police investigation, he bloodies Demarkian's mouth with a suspensionable punch.

In the Gregor Demarkian series, Murder Superior follows A Great Day for the Deadly, and makes occasional, explained references to it. Gregor Demarkian is at home in this Mother's Day episode, on Cavanaugh Street, in Philadelphia, instead of visiting the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Divine Graces in Maryville, New York. From this vantage point, the reader is made privy to his daily habits and the affection felt towards him of a group of solicitous women of mixed ages.

Jane Haddam's Gregor Demarkian Series

# Somebody Else's Music
# True Believers
# Skeleton key
# Deadly beloved
# Baptism in Blood
# And One to Die On
# Fountain of Death
# Bleeding Hearts
# Festival of Deaths
# Dear Old Dead
# Murder Superior
# A Stillness in Bethlehem
# A Great Day for the Deadly
# Feast of Murder
# Quoth the Raven
# Act of Darkness
# Precious Blood
# Not a Creature Was Stirring

Sunday, November 14, 2004