"While enjoying the Winter Festival holiday at his adopted daughter's home in the Alban Hills, Marcus Corvinus discovers that a local politician, Quintus Caesius, has been discovered beaten to death at the rear entrance of the town brothel. There are several suspects with reason to bear Caesius a grudge. But who would hate him enough to kill him? And what would a supposedly solid citizen be doing visiting the local brothel?"--Publisher's description....

May, AD 41. The emperor Claudius has acceded to the throne, and the citizens of Rome look forward to an era of peace and stability. Not so Marcus Corvinus however, who finds himself embroiled in not one but two investigations. A friend of his wife has asked him to look into the murder of her brother, found stabbed to death at the Shrine of Melobosis. A wily businessman and notorious womaniser, no one seems to have a good word to say about Gaius Tullius,...