The Year of Confusion

One of the astronomers helping Julius Caesar with his reform of the Roman calendar is found murdered. Caesar takes this personally and orders Decius Caecilius Metellus to investigate.

Liberal use of famous names as red herrings made this, the last book in the series, even more fun. I accidentally skipped the penultimate volume so I still have that to look forward to as well as some short stories.

Number 13 in this strong series finds our hero Senator Decius Caecilius charged with the unpopular of introducing the new calandar that Dictator Julius Ceasar (one of his better accomplishments, but it did not go down easily according to the plot of this book). Soon he has bigger problems, namely the murder of one of the foreigen astronomers that were recruited to create the calandar. Then a second one is killed. The mystery, although a good one, is not nearly as interesting as these events. We have followed Ceaser up the ladder, and, we will follow him down again and all the players that make that happen are supporting characters in this book. Mostly, I like that he writes these as an only man telling his life story and he is a true show more grumpy old man. show less

Decius is still with us, and still deliciously cynical. He is, however, getting older and more tired, and so is the series. Some of that may be one's knowledge of Caesar's impending doom, but the atmosphere in this novel seems dark and nervous. Also, the solution was a bit disappointing. Still, I will be reading about Decius' exploits as long as they continue to appear.

Run-of-the-mill mystery. Not one of the better ones in this series.
In "the year of confusion", Caesar, with the help of astronomers from distant lands, is setting up his revolutionary new calendar since the present one is so out of joint. Decius is appointed as overseer of the project and stumbles upon two murders; two of the astronomers are done in by a method not seen before. Decius and Hermes get on the case. The author's touches of humor and wit [?] fell flat with me.

Plot: Fairly typical detective story fare, but with a rather unsatisfying and constructed solution. The side plots are functional but not much more.

Characters: Decius is still himself, but with the rest you can feel the historical effects. Most of the cast are fictional by now, and the historical ones are so heavily tied up that they don't get to shine anymore.

Style: First off, the German translation of this one is terrible and every joke falls flat. You can tell they must be there if you translate it back to English, but it got lost along the way. Another issue ties in with the character problem - history is interfering at this point and it takes away the levity of the past books.

Plus: It's still Decius.

Minus: Everyone who's been show more entertaining in the past is gone.

Summary: Get it for completion's sake, but this is a very average detective story with nothing of what made the series special. show less