December MysteryKIT: Greece and Rome

Mysteries set in Ancient Greece and Rome are a subset of historical mysteries, which we looked at in November. We have a UK writer and a US writer in our origin story: Lindsey Davies in the UK and Steven Saylor in the US. Lindsey Davies’s first series is set in the reign of Vespasian with Marcus Didius Falco as her PI (private informer). This first book is The Silver Pigs. Her second series follows Falco’s adopted daughter, Flavia Alba, during the reign of Domitian, starting with The Ides of April. The books vary in tone, some are light cozies while others are rather darker.

Steven Saylor’s Roma Sub Rosa series started off with Roman Blood, in which Gordianus the Finder was hired by Cicero to investigate the background to a real case of Cicero’s – the defence of Sextus Roscius against a charge of parricide. Gordianus’s cases in the novels follow the political history of the time while the short stories, including prequels, involve other incidents known from history.

As the subgenre has developed some authors have used classical antiquity as a backdrop while others have involved their detectives in historical events interacting with historical figures. As with mysteries set in other periods, some authors have even used historical figures as detectives, such as Albert A. Bell Jr.’s series with Pliny and Tacitus as a detecting duo, starting with All Roads Lead to Murder.



Most of the sleuths in this subgenre I am aware of are men, but besides Flavia Alba mentioned above, two more examples of a woman sleuth come in Marilyn Todd’s very funny Claudia Seferius series set in the reign of Augustus, starting with I, Claudia, and the Aurelia Marcella series set in Roman Britain by Jane Finnis, starting with Shadows in the Night. There is also a gang of child sleuths in Caroline Lawrence’s The Roman Mysteries series set during the reign of Titus. The first book is The Thieves of Ostia.



If you want to try some short stories as a taster, that prolific anthologist Mike Ashley has produced The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits. There are also some Roman stories in his other collections of historical mysteries, while his Classical Whodunnits contains stories from both Greece and Rome.



For more suggestions try the site “The Detective and the Toga” at https://histmyst.org/ - though it doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2014.

Lastly, the historian Tacitus has preserved for us in his “Annals” a true crime story of detection. When a woman from a well-connected family called Apronia was found dead in the street, her husband claimed he didn’t know what had happened and that she had either fallen or jumped out of their bedroom window in the dark. The emperor Tiberius then went to view the scene and found signs of a scuffle in the bedroom and concluded that she had been murdered by her husband. You can read about this and other real-life cases of murder in ancient Rome in Emma Southon’s fascinating book, A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Ancient Greece has been less well served by writers of historical mysteries. Indeed I am only familiar with two series. The sleuth in Gary Corby’s Athenian Mysteries series starting with The Pericles Commission is Nicolaos, Socrates’s big brother, while Margaret Doody has one of Aristotle’s pupils, aided by the philosopher, solving mysteries, starting with Aristotle Detective.

A stand-alone novel is The Eye of Cybele by Daniel Chavarría, set in Athens during the Peloponnesian War. This is the only book in this subgenre I am familiar with by a non-Anglophone writer, so if you can recommend others, I would be interested to hear about them.



Last but not least, please do remember to add your reading to the wiki

This one might be a bit trickier for me, but I'll take a closer look to figure out what I might like to try. I'm not sure that there will be anything on the tbr, but I will check that first.

Nice introduction, Robert. Thank you for all the examples. I'll probably read one by Lindsey Davis because I have a couple on the shelf.

Nice job, Robert!

I have The Athenian Murders, by José Carlos Somoza, translated by Sonia Soto, lined up for this challenge. I'm reading the summary again and it perhaps only half counts for this challenge: the main storyline is set in Ancient Greece and involves the murder of a student at Plato's Academy, and the second storyline is about the modern-day translator translating the text about the murders.

Also endorsing the recommendation of A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

I have a complete set of the Roman Mysteries on my Kindle, so I will probably get back to that selection. I read the first few of them with my middle school students before I retired from full time teaching. I am sure I have some of the anthologies on my shelf too.

Thanks for setting this up, Robert. You gave us a lot of good suggestions.

Two additional anthologies that fit this challenge: The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits and The Mammoth Book of Historical Detectives.

Thanks for the suggestions Robert. I'm going to try one of Marilyn Todd's series, Second Act.

I did check my tbr and the closest I have is something set in Egypt, so I decided to look at the suggestions above, instead.

So, I'm leaning toward either "A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" or "The Thieves of Ostia".

Hoping my library has at least one of these.

ETA: Library has both, but "A Fatal Thing Happened..." has a longer waitlist, so that I probably wouldn't get my hands on it until January. So, I'm going for "The Thieves of Ostia".

I think I've settled on The Blood of Caesar by Albert A. Bell, Jr.

I've had this on my shelf for sometime The Silver Pigs: A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery. It is billed as a Ancient Roman mystery. Great time to get to it!

I'm considering reading The Silver Pigs as well, or I may read Shadows in the Night by Jane Finnis.

Oops! I got way ahead of things and am finished mine already! It could fit for November, too, but I don't have an alternative for December, so I'm still going to use it here

The Thieves of Ostia / Caroline Lawrence
3 stars

It’s ancient Rome and the dog belonging to one of Flavia’s neighbours has been killed and beheaded. Flavia and her friends plan to find out who did it.

This is a mix of children’s lit, historical fiction, and mystery. I listened to the audio, and overall it was ok. I did lose focus (as I seem to with audios more often lately) a few times, but the story was ok. There was a short author’s/historical note at the end, though being a kids’ book, it didn’t go into detail. Even with only an “ok” rating from me, it might still be a fun series to continue.

I am starting early with The Throne of Caesar by Steven Saylor as it is one of my reading group's choices for December - to be discussed on 2 December.

I read Mightier than the Sword by John Maddox Roberts, which is a short story in The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits anthology.

The January MysteryKit is up and can be found here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/337444

I read The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis.
As I started reading it became obvious that I've read this before. As it's not recorded as such in my catalogue, it must have been pre-LT. However, I enjoyed it again. A Marcus Didius Falco story is never wasted time. The first in the series, Lindsey not only describes ancient Rome, but gives Falco a sense of humour - and a permanent job.

I just finished Three hands in the fountain, the ninth Falco book, and realised very late that I must have read it before. Way too little plot and too many family shenanigans.

I have read The Ides of April by Lindsey Davis, the first book in the Flavia Albia series. It is a mystery set in Rome in 89 AD. The author wrote a previous series featuring Flavia's father, Marcus Didius Falco and I plan to read the first in that series also. In this book Flavia, a young widow, has taken up her father's profession of investigator. The mystery was fine and the setting interesting. My only problem is that I didn't like the Flavia character. She is a determind investigator who takes reckless chances and I grew rather tired of her. Since it's the first in the series, I might grow more interested in her as books go by.

COMPLETED The Throne of Caesar by Steven Saylor .

My reviews:
Gordianus is asked separately by Cicero and Caesar to investigate whether there is a conspiracy against Caesar's life.

A little too heavy on the dramatic irony, given that we all know what is going to happen to both Caesar and Cinna, whose poetry echoes some disturbing themes from the first book in the series.

COMPLETED Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis

Flavia Albia is asked to look into the death of a 15-year-old girl, which has set her family at odds with her parents now wanting to divorce and her grandmothers resorting to fisticuffs.

I enjoy Albia as a narrator but somehow this one felt a bit lacking. At one point we did seem to be veering towards a recurrent theme of organised crime, which is not something I particularly enjoy.

I read The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis for this

I am reading the novella Vox Populi by Alex A Zudor for this challenge.

Thank you to all who participated and I hope you enjoyed this topic.