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David Wishart studied Classics at Edinburgh University and spent several years teaching in schools and at University.
Solid Citizens
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ISBN-13:
9781780104546
- Publisher: Severn House Publishers
- Publication date: 11/01/2013
- Series: A Marcus Corvinus mystery , #15
- Sold by: Barnes & Noble
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 224
- Sales rank: 366,551
- File size: 643 KB
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December, AD39. While enjoying the Winter Festival holiday at his adopted daughter’s home in the Alban Hills, Marcus Corvinus discovers that an outwardly respectable pillar of the community, local politician Quintus Caesius has been discovered beaten to death at the rear entrance of the town brothel.
Questioning those who knew the victim, Corvinus is dismayed to find Bovillae a place of small town secrets, bitter feuds, malicious gossip and deadly rivalry: a world away from the sophistication of Rome. As he is to discover, there are several suspects with reason to bear Caesius a grudge. But who would hate him enough to kill him? And what would a supposedly solid citizen be doing visiting the local brothel?
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Publishers Weekly
09/09/2013From the outset, anachronistic language and Britishisms combine to detract from Wishart’s otherwise solid 15th Marcus Corvinus first-century A.D. Roman historical (after 2012’s No Cause for Concern). The opening—“I like the Winter Festival. Oh yeah, sure, it can be a complete pain in the rectum”—instantly shatters the illusion that the narrator is speaking to the reader from his actual time period. When the bludgeoned corpse of censor-elect Quintus Caesius (“a pretty big cheese,” as Corvinus puts it) is found outside a brothel in the Alban Hills, where Corvinus is on vacation visiting his adopted daughter and her family, the area’s senate turns to Corvinus, whose reputation as a renowned detective has proceeded him, to solve the crime. The investigation is interesting enough, if not exactly original, but dialogue reminiscent of a 1950s PI film (“Not you, sunshine”) is a fatal flaw. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
Fans will greet this new Corvinus novel with open arms.”Booklist on Solid Citizens
Booklist
Fans will greet this new Corvinus novel with open arms.Kirkus Reviews
2013-10-23What happens in Bovillae stays in Bovillae...until a prominent politician is found brutally beaten there, mere steps from a brothel. In late December A.D. 39, Marcus Corvinus (No Cause for Concern, 2012, etc.) is enjoying a getaway at the villa his adopted daughter Marilla shares with her new husband, Cornelius, in the Alban Hills outside Rome. Self-proclaimed city boy Corvinus finds this change of pace during the Winter Festival highly satisfying. But, of course, his contentment is short-lived. Corvinus is summoned to investigate the death of local censor-elect Quintus Caesius in the nearby gated town of Bovillae. Caesius' corpse, its head bashed in, has been found near the rear entrance of the local cathouse. Corvinus finds suspicious behavior both at the victim's home and all over the town. Caesius' wife, Vatinia, is only two months dead, both his brother Lucius and his nephew Aulus have less grief for the departed than motive to kill him, and his chief slave, Carillus, implausibly pleads complete ignorance of any household discord but repeatedly professes his master's intention to free him. These sketchy circumstances are matched by the amorality and venality Corvinus finds around Bovillae. Businessman Lucius Ampudius and antiques dealer Quintus Baebius are carrying on a petty dispute over a valuable figurine that has turned up missing, and there's much gossip about the victim's household. When the brothel owner is killed, Corvinus begins to take this raucous rogue's gallery of suspects more seriously. Corvinus' wry first-person narrative holds his 15th whodunit together. Wishart adds his usual evocative historical touches, including a detailed map of the gated Bovillae.