Danger in the Wind

October 17, 2011
At the start of Finnis’s well-plotted fourth whodunit set in Roman Britain (after 2008’s Buried Too Deep), feisty Aurelia Marcela, keeper of the Oak Tree Mansio inn near what is now York, receives a disturbing letter from a cousin, Jovina Lepida. Jovina, besides inviting Aurelia to her birthday party at the remote fort where her army husband is stationed, warns of danger and Greeks bearing gifts. Soon afterward, a maid finds one of Aurelia’s guests, a military officer, stabbed to death. The disappearance of the victim’s young servant makes the boy the obvious suspect. The dead man’s effects include a cryptic message apparently referring to a threat to a senior tax official who’s been dispatched from Rome to do audits. Marcela believes there’s a connection between the note and Jovina’s letter. Historical fans who don’t mind modern colloquialisms will have a good time.

November 1, 2011

In Roman Britain, lively innkeeper Aurelia Marcella's (Buried Too Deep) latest round of troubles begin when a soldier is murdered at the inn.

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December 1, 2011
When it rains for an amateur sleuth in ancient Britannia, it pours. Aurelia Marcella, who runs the busy roadside inn the Oak Tree Mansio with her brother Lucius, is excited to receive a party invitation from her cousin Jovina, whom she hasn't seen in more than three years. It's 100 CE, and Aurelia's distant outpost of the Roman Empire is a busy oasis on the long coast road from Eburacum to the city of York, leaving her little respite. The beginning of the missive is bright, but at the bottom there is a cryptic appeal: "Say nothing. Just come." She immediately prepares to do so, for Lucius can handle the mansio alone and, having brought his fiance Vitellia for a visit, may even welcome his sister's absence. But just as Aurelia is about to leave, one of the maids finds the body of Terentius, a Roman soldier who's been stabbed to death. His young slave boy is nowhere to be found. Lucius takes charge, and Vitellia acts like the mistress of the mansio, both irking Aurelia. Since curiosity about the murder is trumped by worry for her cousin, her course is clear. She decides to visit her neighbor Clarilla and ask her to keep a watchful eye. When she arrives, an uptight Roman named Portius is waiting for her, anxious to meet Terentius. The news of his death sends Portius into a fit of panic. Though Aurelia is in possession of Terentius' papers, she lies when Portius asks about them. Aurelia's fourth adventure (Buried Too Deep, 2008, etc.) has richly drawn characters and captures an authentic period feel, but Finnis overloads early chapters with plot threads and peripheral people.

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December 1, 2011
In the fourth in this historical mystery series (after Buried Too Deep, 2008), innkeeper Aurelia Marcella, who runs an elite mansio on the road to York at the end of the first century AD, proves strong willed and intrepid as danger mounts around her. An invitation to her cousin Jovina's birthday party in Isurium includes a plea for help, which Aurelia answers despite the fact that her twin brother, Lucius, has forbid her to travel (in the wake of a murdered soldier found to be carrying a message about a pending assassination in Isurium). Cannily working around the orders of Lucius, who is considered the head of her family, Aurelia joins forces with her lover, Quintus, an imperial investigator. Will Aurelia be able to forestall the violence and quell an uprising against the Romans in Britannia led by Venutius, a tribal prince of the local Brigantians? This entertaining addition to a lively series drives home the point that, even centuries ago, love and money were the primary motivators for murder.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)