Death Ex Machina

Starred review from March 30, 2015
In Australian author Corby’s superior fifth whodunit set in ancient Greece (after 2014’s The Marathon Conspiracy), the city of Athens is preparing to host the Great Dionysia, “the largest and most important arts festival in the world.” But the success of the event is in doubt after a series of accidents on the set of Sophocles’s play Sisyphus. The cast members believe this is the work of a ghost. Pericles, the city’s most powerful man, asks Nicolaos, his inquiry agent, to get rid of the ghost. Unfortunately, not long after Nico arranges for an exorcism ritual, one of the actors is murdered, suspended from the machine designed to hold the character of Thanatos, the god of death, in midair during the performance. Under pressure to find the killer quickly as the festival start date looms, Nico resorts to a clever and amusing ploy to buy more time. Corby again manages to effortlessly integrate laugh-out-loud humor into a fairly clued puzzle. Agent: Janet Reid, FinePrint Literary.

May 1, 2015

Nicolaos, Athens's only professional investigator, is hired by Pericles to find out who is sabotaging the Theater of Dionysos during the Great Dionysia, the largest arts festival in the ancient world. Masks have been destroyed and people injured. The actors believe the ghost of the great actor Thespis is haunting the amphitheater, but as Nico and his wife, Diotima, high priestess of Athena, investigate, they suspect a more human culprit. Someone is trying to halt the production of Sisyphus, King of Corinth, a play written by Sophocles. And when an actor is killed, the stakes rise. VERDICT Peppered with fascinating details about theater history and the Hellenic origins of theatrical lore, Corby's sixth series outing (after The Marathon Conspiracy) will please fans of mysteries set in ancient Greece, especially those written by Anna Apostolou and Marilyn Todd.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2015
Crisis, a word that comes to us straight from the Greek, defines this historical theatrical mystery set in fifth-century-BCE Athens. The Great Dionysia, the annual festival honoring Dionysus, is about to begin. Central to the festival is the Theater of Dionysus, where plays are performed to please the reveling but moody god. Unfortunately, ghost sightings in the theater are freaking out everyone involved. If the plays are badly performed, who knows what punishments Dionysus might wreak on the city. The statesman Pericles once again calls upon young Nicolaos, his sleuth on hire, to expel the ghost from the theater (or convince the actors he's done so). Nicolaos quickly suspects that the acts of sabotage are being committed by a human, not a spirit. Then one of the actors is found hanging from the god machine during a rehearsal of Sophocles' Sisyphus. This fifth mystery in the series moves from shock to shock, each one amplified by the fact that every prank and accident is painted on the scenery wall onstage almost immediately afterward. Corby is adept at delineating ancient Greece without sounding professorial. Having Nicolaos as a first-person narrator helps; he's the ideal tour guide to the theater and the city around it. The characters are a mix of fictional and actual, with the latter including Pericles, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and the child Socrates, who drives everyone crazy with his questions. This works on every level.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)