By the author of The Blood of Caesar, named a Best Mystery of 2008 by Library Journal.
While out hunting at his estate in Laurentum, Pliny finds a man’s body. The man appears lifeless, but Pliny cannot find a cause of death. He locks the body in a stable, but in the morning the body is gone. He summons friend Tacitus to help discover how and why and who. Strangers appear at Pliny’s door, claiming to be the man’s children. One sings siren songs and claims his “father” is immortal. Another may be an empusa, a shape-shifting, blood-drinking monster.
Bodies pile up: a fifteen year old murder, a faceless man floating in the bay, and the “lifeless immortal,” this time with his throat cut. Was he killed for his blood? Clues include the parentage of a local whore who claims official friendship with Pliny’s adoptive father and an acrostic in Hebrew. Pliny and Tacitus must discover how the murders are connected to each other and to Pliny’s nemesis Marcus Aquilius Regulus.
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