Solid Citizens

September 9, 2013
From the outset, anachronistic language and Britishisms combine to detract from Wishart’s otherwise solid 15th Marcus Corvinus first-century A.D. Roman historical (after 2012’s No Cause for Concern). The opening—“I like the Winter Festival. Oh yeah, sure, it can be a complete pain in the rectum”—instantly shatters the illusion that the narrator is speaking to the reader from his actual time period. When the bludgeoned corpse of censor-elect Quintus Caesius (“a pretty big cheese,” as Corvinus puts it) is found outside a brothel in the Alban Hills, where Corvinus is on vacation visiting his adopted daughter and her family, the area’s senate turns to Corvinus, whose reputation as a renowned detective has proceeded him, to solve the crime. The investigation is interesting enough, if not exactly original, but dialogue reminiscent of a 1950s PI film (“Not you, sunshine”) is a fatal flaw.

November 15, 2013
What happens in Bovillae stays in Bovillae...until a prominent politician is found brutally beaten there, mere steps from a brothel. In late December A.D. 39, Marcus Corvinus (No Cause for Concern, 2012, etc.) is enjoying a getaway at the villa his adopted daughter Marilla shares with her new husband, Cornelius, in the Alban Hills outside Rome. Self-proclaimed city boy Corvinus finds this change of pace during the Winter Festival highly satisfying. But, of course, his contentment is short-lived. Corvinus is summoned to investigate the death of local censor-elect Quintus Caesius in the nearby gated town of Bovillae. Caesius' corpse, its head bashed in, has been found near the rear entrance of the local cathouse. Corvinus finds suspicious behavior both at the victim's home and all over the town. Caesius' wife, Vatinia, is only two months dead, both his brother Lucius and his nephew Aulus have less grief for the departed than motive to kill him, and his chief slave, Carillus, implausibly pleads complete ignorance of any household discord but repeatedly professes his master's intention to free him. These sketchy circumstances are matched by the amorality and venality Corvinus finds around Bovillae. Businessman Lucius Ampudius and antiques dealer Quintus Baebius are carrying on a petty dispute over a valuable figurine that has turned up missing, and there's much gossip about the victim's household. When the brothel owner is killed, Corvinus begins to take this raucous rogue's gallery of suspects more seriously. Corvinus' wry first-person narrative holds his 15th whodunit together. Wishart adds his usual evocative historical touches, including a detailed map of the gated Bovillae.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 15, 2013
The year is 39 CE. A politician in a town outside Rome is murdered, his body found at a brothel. The victim has a reputation as a respectable citizen; can it be that he had a secret life? Investigator Marcus Corvinus, star of more than a dozen novels since 1995's Ovid, must answer that question before the town is torn apart. This is a solid entry in the Corvinus series, with the usual strengths (excellent characterization and period setting) and weaknesses (the prose often awkwardly sounds like a modern-day translation, with phrases like oh yeah, sure sounding decidedly off-key). There are numerous similarities between this series and Lindsey Davis' long-running Marcus Didius Falco series, which debuted in 1989 and also features a Roman private investigator whose stories are told in a noirish first-person narration. Fans of both series will have long ago made their peace with the anachronistic narrative style and will greet this new Corvinus novel with open arms.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)