A Mysterious Review of Death in the Ashes by Albert A. Bell, Jr.. The Notebooks of Pliny the Younger.
Review summary: This is a very entertaining whodunit-style mystery, set in ancient Rome and featuring a real historical person (Pliny the Younger) but written in a contemporary manner. The Italian countryside provides not only a backdrop to the proceedings, most particularly the region around Mount Vesuvius, but also plays a part in the investigation. (Click here for text of full review.)
Our rating:
Death in the Ashes
Albert A. Bell, Jr.
The Notebooks of Pliny the Younger
Perseverance Press (September 2013)
Publisher synopsis: A few years after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, where he lost his adoptive father and mentor, Pliny the Younger is asked by his friend Aurelia to help her husband Calpurnius, who has been accused of murder in Naples. Pliny has solved previous crimes, but never before has so much time and distance elapsed before his arrival on the murder scene … nor has he carried so much emotional baggage.
With the help of his wisecracking sidekick Tacitus, he now must investigate cunning plots by some descendants of Augustus, which include murders and babies switched at birth. One fortunate circumstance in Pliny's detective activities is that the hardened ash crust makes good impressions of hand- and foot-prints. But now, for the first time, Pliny must swallow his phobias and ghastly memories and face a deadly challenge in the ruins of a buried villa.
0 comments:
Post a Comment