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Title: A Murder On The Appian Way : A Mystery Of Ancient Rome by Steven Saylor ISBN: 0-312-96173-1 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 May, 1997 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.96 (50 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Saylor creates another suspensful success!
Comment: Murder on the Appian Way is a great way of transporting directly to the Roman culture. Saylor captures the Roman family life with greatness. The book was captivating from the very beginning. From the very first page I was excited by the action of the mysterious murder of Clodius. Gordianus' search for the truth was what brought my attention immediately. I was on the edge of my seat to see if Gordianus and his trusty sidekick son, Eco, was able to find out the mystery which linked him to the murder of Clodius and the infamous Milo. I got caught up into the book so much that I lost sleep. I felt like Gordianus when reading this because I too wanted to know the real truth. The book has many aspects to it; you can take which ever path you choose. You can take the family life path or the murder mystery path or even get caught up in the famous people of Rome and what they may be like. I would definitely recommend this excellent book to anyone who enjoys mystery or history; Saylor mixes both phenomenaly.
Rating: 5
Summary: Murder is the Roman way.
Comment: So one would be led to believe after reading this book. Though the "mystery" in this mystery novel isn't quite as strong as I would have hoped, A Murder on the Appian Way" still counts in my eyes as one of Steven Saylor's better works.
The story takes place in the year 52 BC, at a time when Rome was just beginning its slide into civil war and was inching towards the eventual fall of the Republic. Publius Clodius, a patrician turned plebeian demagogue, was brutally murdered on the road linking the capital to southern Italia: the great Via Appia (which, curiously enough, was built by one of his own ancestors, Appius Claudius Caecus). Called upon to look into the matter by Clodius' wife Fulvia and by no less a personage than Pompey the Great, an ageing Gordianus the Finder and his son Eco ride into the shadows beneath Mount Alba to discover the truth about the death of Rome's most controversial political luminary in years.
The problem with using historical events as themes for mystery novels is that one looks at things with the benefit of hindsight. (A little research of your own will tell you just about everything that happens in the book.) Saylor's skill lies in his ability to make even foregone conclusions seem uncertain, especially with the introduction of possible alternatives and suspects one would not have even considered after reading the ancient sources. Hence, even though the mystery element tends to get swallowed up by the vastnesss of the novel's rich historical backdrop, one could always expect something interesting to happen towards the end.
Although Saylor explains characters and concepts fairly well, knowing a tidy bit about such things as daily life, architecture and the politics of late Republican Rome will help a lot (when, for example, one tries to visualise such places as the Clodius house on the Palatine and the grand, rather cramped space that is the Forum Romanum). Having some prior knowledge about the political factions that existed at the time should also assist the serious reader when it comes to understanding the circumstances surrounding Clodius' death . . . but in the end, don't let the nitty-gritty details spoil your reading experience. Historical the basis may be, but the novel is a work of fiction nonetheless and is meant for entertainment above all else. And of course, you'd pick up a lot of things about Roman history at the same time.
All told, "A Murder on the Appian Way" may seem more like a Colleen McCullough than an Agatha Christie: more history, less mystery. But that does little to dent the excitement and anticipation that builds up as one courses through this book, for one would feel as though he were right there on the Appian Way with Gordianus himself, riding into the face of danger and bearing witness to a murder that is not quite what it seems to be.
Rating: 5
Summary: Almost Seamless
Comment: As always in the Roma Subrosa series, the difficult for the author was to handle the historical material - avaliable mainly in Cicero's speeches - in order to create a "mystery" where historically there was none, the thug-warfare of Late Republican Rome being carried enoughly in the open to preclude the necessity of anyone hiring a sleuth to find out what really had happened. That said, Saylor has made the conversion of History into entretainmant in an almost seamless - and always pleasurable - way.
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Title: The Venus Throw : A Mystery of Ancient Rome by Steven Saylor ISBN: 0312957785 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The House of the Vestals : The Investigations of Gordianus the Finder by Steven Saylor ISBN: 0312964528 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Rubicon : A Novel of Ancient Rome by Steven Saylor ISBN: 0312971184 Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur Pub. Date: 15 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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Title: Last Seen in Massilia : A Novel in Ancient Rome by Steven Saylor ISBN: 0312977875 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 17 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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Title: Catilina's Riddle by Steven Saylor ISBN: 080411269X Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 29 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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