Spqr I: A Mystery: 1 (The SPQR Roman Mysteries 1)

Blackmail corruption treachery murder--the glory that was Rome.. In this Edgar Award-nominated mystery John Maddox Roberts takes readers back to a Rome filled with violence and evil. Vicious gangs ruled the streets of Crassus and Pompey routinely preying on plebeian and patrician alike so the garroting of a lowly ex-slaved and the disembowelment of a foreign merchant in the dangerous Subura district seemed of little consequence to the Roman hierarchy. But Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger--highborn commander of the local vigiles--was determined to investigate. Despite official apathy brazen bribes and sinister threates Decius uncovers a world of corruption at the highest levels of his government that threatens to destroy him and the government he serves.