pickA literary friend of Perilla's asks him to look into the death of her husband, though nobody, including the widow, seems particularly sorry he's dead. Meanwhile Corvinus's adopted daughter and her husband find a body which somebody had stabbed even though he was already dead of natural causes.
A nice twisty tale, made even more so by the fact that I kept getting Perilla and Marilla confused.
pickA consul's wife asks Marcus Corvinus to look into the death of her uncle, whose death Alexander the Great has assured her in a seance was murder rather than an accident.
Very funny first few chapters lead into an intriguing historical mystery which made me wonder when certain names cropped up how it would gel with real events and which was told by a narrator with a consistently amusing “voice“.
pickOn a visit to his adoptive daughter and her husband for the Winter Festival, Marcus Corvinus is asked to investigate the death of a local worthy found with his head bashed in outside the back door to a brothel.
Less convoluted than the high politics stories. Closely tied to a previous instalment in the series which I have only the vaguest memory of.
"‘Nonsense, Marcus! Phormio‘s an excellent chef.‘ She paused. Perilla can be pretty dogmatic, sure, but at root she‘s fair and honest. ‘In his way. By his own lights. Within certain parameters. It‘s simply that he can be rather too … inventive at times.‘"
pickAn organised crime boss's wife asks Marcus Corvinus to help her trace her missing son from a previous marriage.
A quick read novella which functions as just an excuse to see Marcus Corvinus again.
pickDion, Macro's former secretary, delivers a posthumous letter from Macro to Marcus Corvinus asking him to clear Macro's name. As soon becomes apparent, Macro never had a secretary called Dion and the letter is a forgery.
It's been a long time since I last read a book in this series, so I didn't always follow references to previous events, but I still love Corvinus's narrative voice. I really mustn't leave such a long gap next time.
