SPQR XII: Oracle of the Dead: A Mystery (The SPQR Roman Mysteries, 12) - Softcover

Roberts, John Maddox

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312538952 ISBN 13: 9780312538958

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2009

Synopsis

Decius Caecilius Metellus, this year's magistrate for cases involving foreigners, thinks he is merely visiting one of the local attractions of southern Italy when he takes a party to visit the Oracle of the Dead, a pre-Roman cult site located at the end of a tunnel dug beneath a temple of Apollo. But there is a bitter rivalry between the priests of Apollo and those of Hecate, who guard the oracle, and when the priests are all killed, the countryside looks to explode in violence as Greeks, Romans, and native Italians of several conquered nations bring out old enmities.

This riveting historical series began with the Edgar Award–nominated SPQR I: The King's Gambit and has gone on to international success in thirteen languages.

About this title

About the Author:

John Maddox Roberts is the author of numerous works of science fiction and fantasy in addition to his SPQR series set in Ancient Rome. He and his wife live in New Mexico.

From Publishers Weekly:

Civil war looms between the forces of Julius Caesar and Pompey, providing an ominous background for Roberts's compelling 12th Roman historical to feature Decius Caecilius Metellus (after 2007's SPQR XI: Under Vesuvius). Recently raised to the post of praetor peregrinus, Metellus is enjoying traveling outside Rome hearing cases involving foreigners, but he gets an unexpected shock at the Oracle of the Dead near the southern Italian town of Baiae. The corpse of Eugaeon, a priest of Apollo, surfaces in the rushing stream of water inside the oracle's temple. Oddly, Eugaeon's body shows no sign of violence but is completely hairless. After the priest's missing colleagues, initially the prime suspects, also turn up dead, the astute sleuth comes to believe that these current killings are but the latest of many. Metellus puts his own life at risk in an exciting case that engages the attention of Pompey himself. (Dec.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0312538952
• ISBN 13: 9780312538958
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240