Marcus Corvinus is a private investigator of sorts in Ancient Rome. Here he is enticed out of Rome to a backwater village in Latium to investigate an apparent natural death of an ailing lawyer that quickly become a murder hunt leading to several other deaths. All the victims are unloveable characters and there are any number of suspects and motives. The untangling of the web is most satisfactory.

What lets this book down is the way that the central character of Corvinus is depicted. He is supposed to be a patrician, vaguely part of the Roman elite. Wishart insists on having him speak Estuary English like some Essex bank robber and this jars throughout.

The historical components are very good and we see daily life in some detail and clarity. ( )

Marcus Corvinus is summoned to his aunt-in-law's village by his adopted daughter because she suspects a neighbour may have been poisoned rather than succumbed to a longstanding degenerative disease.

I love Corvinus's 'voice'. Although the mystery itself was fairly run of the mill, it is just so much fun the way Corvinus tells it. ( )

Corvinus is drawn to the Alban Hills by the report of a probable murder. The victim is a local lawyer, and everyone who knew him had good reason to wish him dead. Corvinus gets to work, sorting out the clues with the help of his family (including the redoubtable Aunt Marcia) and eventually arriving at a satisfying conclusion. The atmosphere of a small town near Rome in the early days of the Empire is excellently drawn, and the regular cast of characters provides amusing asides. I hope that Corvinus gets back to metropolitan politics soon, but in the meantime, this is a good read. ( )

The latest (2009) of the Corvinus mysteries. This one takes place entirely in private, as Corvinus investigates a murder that is worrying the family of his stepdaughter. It has the usual virtues of this series, an engrossing atmosphere and engaging ongoing characters. Still, I wish Corvinus would get back into the realm of politics, as little as he likes it. ( )

Illegally Dead by David Wishart. Part of the reason I wanted to get In at the Death through ILL was that I knew the next book in the series was already on its way. Despite being from the same series, the two are surprisingly different. Whereas the first is set entirely in Rome and features a complicated plot and imperial conspiracy, the current book is set in small-town Castrimoenium (also the site for A Vote for Murder, one of the better books in the series) and is essentially a cozy, “everyone-knows-everyone-else” mystery. Wise-cracking Marcus Corvinus responds to a plea from his adopted daughter, Marilla, to leave the capital during the early days of Caligula’s reign and investigate the possible poisoning of a local lawyer whose recent antagonistic behavior due to his deteriorating mental condition has created several possible suspects. Corvinus brings most of his household with him: his wife Perilla, who tries to keep his swearing to a minimum as she subtly steers the direction of his investigations, his major-domo Bathyllus and his talented chef Meton. Perilla is much less prominent in this book compared to the previous one, while Meton is suspected of seducing a freewoman in town. New to the cast is Clarus, a young doctor in town who brings a bit of forensic science to the case and who appears likely to be a recurring character as he is engaged to Marilla. The plot continually twists with several additional dead bodies appearing at regular intervals. If you can get past the fact that a low-level aristocrat like Corvinus addresses everyone as “pal” or “princess” or “sunshine” like some hard-boiled detective from the 1940s, then you’ll enjoy this otherwise well-written and well-paced series.

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