shannon_a

Read the first SPQR short today. At 17 pages long, it was scarcely worth getting the book from the library. It was a tight little murder mystery set directly after the previous book, as Decius heads back from Alexandria.

I vaguely considered paging through the huge mass of other stories in Classical Whodunnits and finally decided that I'd do better to look at reviews or recommendations when and if I want another mystery series. So, with the 17 pages read, the book is going back to the Library.

Finished off SPQR III today. This is third book in the series of Roman mysteries that I started reading earlier this year.

It indeed was much like the others (as Mary had promised was true of the series): Decius starts looking into a murder and (the semi-spoilers start here) finds out that major figures in Rome are involved and despite that he continues working away on the problem though he's in way over his head (politically).

This book was interesting in that Decius never got to make his accusations of guilt. Instead he's run out of Rome by, well, elephants. That was a bit different from the others in the series and a relatively brave way to end the book.

I also like the fact that we're seeing some increasing continuity, as Julius Caesar has taken an interest both in Decius' abilities and his romantic future. It'll be interesting to see where that goes.

Still a good series, both for its mystery and for its history, though the latter probably trumps the former.

This book was set in year 693 or Rome or 61 BC, which would be pretty shortly after the last one.

Last month on Xenagia, bofh asked how you find new books to read. I find, as often as not, that new books fall into my lap my serendipity. Take as an example, SPQR, a series of Roman mystery books by John Maddox Roberts.

I was predisposed to be interested in a book about ancient Rome because I've been watching the Rome TV show on DVD. Then, George R.R. Martin mentioned in a blog post that he was sharing a signing event with John Maddox Roberts, who just released SPQR XII. Serendipity!

(I should also thank the internet, which makes it possible for me to remember to get a book that interests me, where it might have just slipped my mind 10 years ago. Now I log straight on to my library's web site, and reserve a copy, and somewhere between 1-7 days later, they tell me it's ready to be picked up.)

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Anyway, SPQR. This is a set of mysteries taking place in ancient Rome. The first one is set in "year 684 of the City of Rome", which I think makes it 70BC, or about 15 years before the events of Rome.

The mystery itself is very complex, involving political machinations and many powerful folks in Rome. I'm not sure if that's going to be par for the course, or if we're going to get smaller mysteries as well. I kinda' hope the latter.

I adore the fact that Roberts freely plays with many historical personages, among them Pompey, Crassus, Caesar, Tigranes, and Cicero. It really makes me want to learn more about this period of history. Roberts manages this all in a very immersive way, giving me a great feeling of cultural authenticity.

In many ways, I find the fact of the mystery perhaps the least element of the book, something to hold together all his great cultural history.

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I chatted with Mary about this book over the weekend, and she said she'd read the first 3 or so books in the series before getting burned out due to a sense of sameness ... which tells me I should read these books slowly so as not to ruin then. Which makes sense; the SPQR books aren't the pure brain candy of many of the mysteries that I read.