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

April Fool Dead, by Carolyn G. Hart

Thursday, November 18, 2004

April Fool Dead, by Carolyn G. Hart, is a South Carolina mystery based in the Death on Demand bookstore featuring Annie and her husband Max Darling.

In April Fool Dead, by Carolyn G. Hart, Annie Laurence Darling, who runs Death on Demand, a mystery bookstore on a South Carolina Island known as Broward's Rock, creates fliers for a contest for mystery fans to publicize an April Fool's Day signing event. Someone else makes a convincing spoof of Annie's fliers with a series of clues based on Broward's Rock's hit and run, adultery, and other scandals of recent years. The fake contest prize is hefty and tempers are short with everyone blaming Annie until she manages to convince them that she did not write the fliers or dig up all the local dirt. Who created the fake fliers was only the first mystery of April Fool Dead. Who killed the prim and proper local high school teacher who may or may not have been responsible for the fliers comes next, followed quickly by the mystery of the terrified senior and her murder.

Annie, her guest mystery best-selling writer Emma, and the police each try to stroke their egos by solving the mysteries first. Meanwhile, Annie's flakey mother-in-law is incommunicado while out dousing and intimates that she may have witnessed a murder. A retired police chief Frank Saulter is fearful of a paroled murderer, although when the time comes for the two to confront each other, Frank neatly shoots his would-be assailant's gun from his hand.

Both Annie and Emma use their mystery reading skills to deduce clues. Annie and her husband Max hatch a plot that would be called entrapment by the police. It succeeds in flushing out into the waiting arms of the police the faculty member guilty of at least one murder.

In the end, normalcy is restored. Annie and Emma's book signing event is the biggest in local history. The prize that Annie had promised with no way of delivering is neatly revoked. But we still don't know for sure if the high school teacher was responsible for the fake fliers which had featured so prominently at the start of the book. Other weaknesses of April Fool Dead are the conventional improper relationship between faculty member and student and the uninspired perfection of Annie's husband. Even the emblematic cat of the cozy is used more to depict Annie's own eating habits than as a character in its own right, and details about the charming bookstore are pitifully few. Carolyn G. Hart has written better, more engaging mysteries, but for mystery puzzle fans and those who enjoy the stories about Broward's Rock, April Fool Dead is worth reading.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Premedicated Murder, by Douglas Clark

Sunday, November 14, 2004

Douglas Clark's 1975 midseries murder mystery Premedicated Murder features Scotland Yard detectives, a murder, and the class conflict familiar to Americans from the televized version of Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley series. Detective Inspector (DI) Green acts the boor, "inconsiderately" sucking on fragrant cough lozenges and wielding crumpled cigarettes from his pocket when not cadging them from others. Although his superior, Detective Superintendent George Masters, has tried to get Green reassigned, the Yard believes that they, together with Brant and Hill, the remaining members of their four-man team, work too well in murder investigations to break up. From a U.S. perspective, Green's siding with the working class and sucking cough drops when his throat tickles sound perfectly normal, but thinking of Masters as Lynley and Green as Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers helps.

Since Premedicated Murder was written three decades ago, there are barriers bigger than the Atlantic, not to understanding, but to identifying closely with the lead characters. Sexist comments like "'Poison? That doesn't sound like a yob's work. A woman's trick, more likely'" and "'He says that long hair breeds lice. When I point out to him that girls would still have to keep long hair if the sexes were going to be as differentiated as he wants, he says that lice must be misogynistic because girls don't get them'" are so absurd as to be very funny. In this era of the deliberate exposure of thong waistbands and other external uses of underwear, Green's concern with propriety seems excessive: "...conscious that they were wrinkled round his ankles and that his position in the chair was such that he must be showing a length of hairy bare leg. Green was prudish about such things." But Green isn't the only one. The woman he is interviewing says, "'I shan't mind if you take your jacket off, so long as you are not wearing braces.'" Such touches are delightful and bring the reader quickly back into an era where there were standards of modesty.

Like Green, the murder victim of Premedicated Murder had served proudly in World War II. Unlike Green, he had suffered serious injury to the entire side of his body, so much so that had he been anyone else he would have been in a wheelchair, but being Roger Harte, he got around with the help of his wife and neighbors. Newlywed Sarah Harte had been working in a drug dispensary when her husband was crushed in an accident on the front. She successfully sought transfer so she could tend her husband and the armed forces. Her devotion to her husband was complete, so it was unthinkable that she would have wanted him dead.

Roger Harte died of Ricin poison, a drug processed from the seeds of the castor bean and one of the world's most deadly poisons. In the hands of terrorists, a couple of spoonfuls, as Douglas Clark tells us, could wipe out London. Ricin is only one of the products of castor beans. Harte's neighbor, Rencory, processes the beans for feed, but the plant has such lethal potential that it is immediately clear that even if Rencory knew nothing about Ricin's manufacture, his business was the source.

Roger Harte is the most respected person in Lowther Close, and his next door neighbor, Rencory, is the community's most hated member. Roger had been urging the rest of the community to accept Recory, but his efforts had failed. It is therefore puzzling that Harte, Rencory's only friend and champion, appeared to have ingested the poison while having a cup of after dinner coffee with his neighbor.

Rencory had means and opportunity. In Scotland Yard practice, motive need not be established. Still, it didn't make sense.

Premedicated Murder
by Douglas Clark
Dell Publishing
1981
172 pages

Sunday, November 14, 2004

The Con Man's Daughter, by Ed Dee

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Excitement, a well-concocted plot, and most of all, fully-developed characters make The Con Man's Daughter, by Ed Dee, is a mystery to open up to the possibilities of thrillers the mind of even a confirmed devotee of the cozy mystery novel.

From page one, which you can read online, author Ed Dee grabs the reader's attention. If the little school girl telling an old knock-knock joke can so love and laugh at her grizzled fifty-something grandfather, there must be a wonderful person beneath his gruff exterior. Eddie Dunne is an ex-cop who was booted off the force for consorting with the Italian Mafia. Since then, he has made his living with its counterparts among the recent Jewish Russian immigrants who work out of Coney Island. A womanizer and a usually sober alcoholic, Eddie's past is checkered with vices, but in the meanwhile, he has raised his red-haired daughter, Kate, to adulthood, and taken in her and her exuberant daughter, Grace, when Kate's husband disappeared.

They all live in Yonkers, right across from the bar Eddie's father owned and which is now operated by Eddie's brother and sister-in-law. It definitely is a tightly knit Irish-American family.

On the scene, in an official capacity, as soon as Eddie finds that his daughter has been kidnapped, is another lifelong acquaintance. The Polish policewoman Babsie temporarily moves in and is gradually revealed to have been in love with Eddie at least since they danced together in high school.

With everyone loving Eddie so profoundly, his catalogue of sins becomes palatable. He had been a top-notch policeman until his superior had the insane idea to pair him with a known brother of the Mob. It wasn't an easy position for Eddie to be in and it's doubtful it could have ended in anything but their joint expulsion from the police force, even without the booze and other temptations. But that was fourteen years ago. Now Eddie's only daughter is gone. His son-in-law has mysteriously reappeared with a sudden interest in taking custody of Grace. No ransom demand enforces the idea that the kidnapping of Kate had been unplanned: that the break-in in which Kate was abducted was a foiled attempt to find an imaginary stash of millions.

While looking for Kate, Eddie tackles all his Underworld connections. Using his prize fighting fists wherever he has an opportunity to vent some of his frustration, he beats out only very meagre bits of information, but each is enough to propel Eddie to the next set of clues and the next heavy for Eddie to pummel. Breaking and entering, shooting off toes, and putting a gypsy in a position to be killed are the extremes to which Eddie goes in his hunt for Kate.

What doesn't quite make sense to Eddie -- although he is eternally grateful, of course -- is why his daughter has been kept alive. The reason for her continued existence is the clue Eddie must translate into the identity of the kidnapper.

After finishing The Con Man's Daughter, I craved more Eddie Dunne. The characters are so vivid and multi-faceted I already miss them. So what if there's a bit of unnecessary blood and gore? I don't have to watch it in grotesque living color on the tube, but can skim over the unpleasantness. The world of the Underworld has fascinated people since Mario Puzo's The Godfather and the Russian Mafiya Ed Dee describes presents an intriguing new twist.

The Con Man's Daughter
by Ed Dee
Publication Date: November 2003
Mysterious Press
ISBN 0892967943
288 Pages

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Rosemary Rowe

Originally posted on Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Rosemary Rowe

I hope to get back to reviewing soon, but for now, let me recommend Rosemary Rowe, the author of the Libertus mystery series. Libertus is so-named because he is a freedman. He was born a Celt, but sold into slavery, and once freed, he started searching for his wife. It's been a few decades, but he still hears rumors that make him think it's not a lost cause. Unfortunately, Libertus has a patron who keeps him occupied both in his profession, as a mosaic layer, and in his avocation, as a sleuth. Of course, his patron takes much of the credit and when it's on his tab, he doesn't pay. The era is that of the Roman emperor Commodus, the infamous emperor and son of Stoic philosopher and benign emperor Marcus Aurelius.

Murder at the B-School, by Jeffrey Cruikshank

Thursday, November 04, 2004

"Vermeer imagined explaining the whole messy situation -- dead rich kid, Harvard, and so on -- to the state trooper who flagged him down doing 120 through the moneyed western suburbs."

"Reluctantly he slowed down. He had had a motorcycle once that talked to him in the same kind of ways. He had finally had to get rid of it."

Told mostly from the perspective of a junior faculty member who is about to not make tenure in the Harvard Business school, Murder at the B-School looks at the dependence of even so august an institution as Harvard upon the patronage of wealthy families and support of local politicians. Internecine fighting among faculty (the motive for which is, unfortunately, only inadequately explained) leads not only to Wim Vermeer's imminent separation from Harvard, but also the plight he eventually finds himself in when the dean sends him off to console the fabulously wealthy family of a possibly murdered student, Eric MacInnes. Vermeer doesn't know why he's been singled out for the honor, but the dean is one who must be disobeyed. Assuming he is nothing more than the school's representative, heterosexual Vermeer soon finds the MacInnes family and staff hostile to him for an affair with their dead son that never took place. Vermeer gets into further and further mischief as his temper flares up in response to the sinking feeling that he has been set up. Fortunately for Vermeer, he has the support of a captain on the Boston police, who also suffers from collegial hostility. Captain Barbara Brouillard steers clear of the typical detective show policeman's tendency to prefer the most obvious explanation. She thinks it's too cute, but to Vermeer, it seems damning, and he doubts Captain Brouillard's belief in his innocence. When police find a second murder victim, the McInnes daughter, just after Vermeer has had a very public argument with her, Vermeer becomes desperate. He follows whatever lead he can, breaking ad lib. legal arrangements between him and Harvard as he leaves, not only town, but country in pursuit of the person he believes has set him up.

A delightful page-turner, Murder at the B-School depicts the reality of modern academic life and the surreal world of the fabulously wealthy. The two lead characters are plausibly motivated and sympathetic. Vermeer's unbridled temper and tendency to talk to machines, and the occasional deus ex machina add touches of comic relief. The plot evolves gradually with one clue teased out at a time. The weakness of Murder at the B-School as a murder mystery, is in the area of motive, which is especially noticeable in the lack of background between Vermeer and his nemesis.

Murder at the B-School
by Jeffrey Cruikshank
Mysterious Press
2004
336 pages

Thursday, November 04, 2004

Judgment of Caesar, by Steven Saylor

Thursday, November 04, 2004

Not everyone will be thrilled to see Gordianus the Finder locking horns with Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy for no more logical reason than that he was found on the site where the headless corpse of Pompey was being burned. Some will even object to the fortuitousness of his winding up watching the decapitation of the Great One. But a touch (or more) of humor in so momentous a part of late Republican Roman history suits me perfectly.

Parallel to the conclusion of the Roman Republic as Gordianus knew it is the disappearance and presumed drowning of his deathly ill wife. All aspects tie together in this presumed final volume of Gordianus the finder.

Gordianus the Finder acts as the proverbial fly on the wall watching as his archenemy Pompey has his head whacked off, and then as Cleopatra has herself brought in to Caesar as the center of a rolled-up carpet. Then to affect a reconciliation with his son Meto from whom he has been estranged since Last Seen in Massilia, Caesar charges Meto with attempted murder. Gordianus has become such an old curmudgeon that he can't admit he might have been wrong to disown his son, but when his son's life hangs in the balance, his innate goodness shines through and he saves the day.

Most of The Judgment of Caesar sets the stage for this bit of detecting; that is, the mystery forms a small part, but it is crucial to the relationships that make Saylor's Gordianus series such a hit. There is also a second mystery which forms the beginning and end. That is the mystery of Bethesda's disappearance. Did the god Osiris take her or not? Although the ending is not entirely transparent, it seems pretty clear that the reunion of Besthesda and Gordianus spells the end of the series, unless Saylor intends to start writing in the fantasy genre.

Judgment of Caesar
by Steven Saylor
St. Martin's
2004
304 pages

Thursday, November 04, 2004

White Murder, by David Wishart

Friday, November 05, 2004

White Murder, by David Wishart, is a Roman historical mystery featuring Marcus Corvinus as sleuth.

Romans of the Imperial Period took their entertainment and sports teams seriously: Blues, Greens, Whites, and Reds, allegiance was fierce and gambling stakes high. In White Murder, by David Wishart (as probably in life), incidental players wind up crippled or dead because of the ruthless pursuit of a win or a thrown game. Poisoning a race horse or stabbing a top driver are equally capital offenses, but no one seems interested in who killed Pegasus, the winning racing driver. No one wants to know who stabbed Pegasus in the tavern's back alley, except Corvinus who spends many of his own coins buying fancy wine to open up potential witnesses.

A deadly warning from a witch and more general warnings from others about the chief mobster don't deter Corvinus, but luck seems to be on his side as he cracks wise with men devoid of humor. Everyone tells Corvinus something, but no one tells him enough. Some, of course, fail to tell the truth, and most don't even know it. There isn't even much interest in the murder of the much-hated Pegasus -- until the top horse is poisoned just before a major race.

Corvinus is a purple striper, a member of the senatorial class. Other than his wife and her friends, the only use Corvinus has for its status is its wealth (wealth and class did not necessarily go hand-in-hand at the time). As a wisecracking, disorganized wino, it seems a miracle that Corvinus gets anywhere, but he does have a topnotch support staff in his highly cultured wife and domestics.

Surviving seasickness and an attempt on his life, Corvinus, with the help of his wife and one of her equally cultured friends, figures out the solution, but not before the underworld boss who had warned Corvinus he would exact revenge for the unauthorized killings. Revenge, however, turns out to be unnecessary as the guilty party has a sense of honor and takes the respected Roman way out.

I wondered why Wishart's White Murder was so long compared with his other mysteries. Four factions or sports racing teams with underworld ties seemed the likely answer, since Corvinus would have four quarters to investigate instead of just one. That was part of it and, as it turned out, a good chunk of the book was devoted to a delightful working vacation trip to Sicily. However, the action was snail-paced with Corvinus, buffeted by forces beyond his control, moving from one pub (I mean, clue) to the next, with interesting characters, like the wart (Tiberius), popping in and out without much development. Nor does the reader know where the next gold piece will come from or whether it's any skin off Corvinus' nose to plunk down 20 of them for a questionable bit of information. Why is Corvinus so obsessed with finding the killer of Pegasus? Even at the beginning, his interest doesn't make complete sense. Is he just a busybody? Presumably the earlier episodes provide the missing background, but a volume in a series should stand alone and White Murder seems to totter.

White Murder - A Marcus Corvinus Mystery
By David Wishart
Publication Date: April 2003
New English Library
ISBN 0340771283
624 Pages

Friday, November 05, 2004

The Accusers, by Lindsey Davis

Saturday, November 06, 2004

In The Accusers, by Lindsey Davis, we readers learn about Marcus Didius Falco's real occupation, and in the process, find out why he is treated with contempt by so many. Not that he deserves it. Falco manages to maintain high standards even when dishing up the dirt on his victims, but not all informers are so ethical. Some of his "colleagues" line up their victims years in advance.

Usually, but not in The Accusers, Marcus Didius Falco is off on an adventure for one of the Flavian emperors. These missions are confidential and so not everyone understands why Falco has been neglecting his job as procurator of the sacred geese. When it looks as though Falco has stepped on one too many feet, a charge of impiety and dereliction of duty is laid on his plate. Will the notoriously unsupportive imperial household step in to help this time or will Falco and his children face permanent humiliation or worse?

The impiety charge is just a sideline. In The Accusers Falco accuses a woman of the senatorial class of murdering Metellus, her husband. This is a serious charge. If wrong Falco could face severe financial penalties. Metellus had been denounced, by some of Falco's deservingly despised cronies, for corruption and taking advantage of his son's public office. The son -- called Birdy by his estranged wife -- was not accused. In itself, that is odd. Had the convicted Metellus died a suicide, it would have been expected and considered an honorable way out, but he didn't. Instead, his life disposed of by poison of one kind or another. His will passed all his goods to Birdy's estranged wife. Why? Was she the old man's mistress? Was she holding something over on him? Why did she claim the poison was hemlock when everyone else said it was corn cockles?

The Accusers is unlike the other Falco stories. There is far more historical information and background about trials, the judicial system, and informers than there usually is in one of Lindsey Davis' books. There is also far less of the back and forth between members of Falco's family. Falco's father is only mentioned occasionally and mainly in connection with a scam. Anacrites and Falco's sisters remain in the background. Falco's mother only carps. Helena Justina's usually distant parents, keep offering help and Falco's brothers-in-law and wife do a good portion of the sleuthing.

Some readers will not appreciate the legal detail and will miss the good natured repartee among Falco family members. I quite enjoyed the very different flavor of The Accusers, which I assume was something of a transitional volume. I just don't know where Falco and family are heading. More than ever, I look forward to the day when the next volume, Scandal takes a Holiday, crosses over to this side of the Atlantic.

Saturday, November 06, 2004