The Bull Slayer

Sometimes murder is only a distraction from the real betrayal.

Pliny, a respectable young senator and lawyer, is the newly appointed governor of Bithynia, a turbulent frontier province rotting with corruption and seething with hatred of Rome. When a high Roman official is found murdered on a desolate hillside miles from the capital, Pliny must untangle numerous threads in the investigation, including a barbarian god whose devotees may include a murderer, a clever and unscrupulous faith healer who knows everyone's secrets, and a boy who struggles toward manhood though stricken with the "sacred disease."