Roman Road Trip, Book Review of Earthly Gods

The Middle East – dangerous now, dangerous then. The author Nick Brown takes us on an action packed road trip through lawless parts of Asia Minor in the 3^rd Century C.E. We follow his protagonist Cassius Corbulo, imperial agent, as he tries to solve two mysteries in challenging circumstances: to locate his kidnapped bodyguard and friend Indavara and to help a nomadic chieftain to find his missing daughter and her friends. An added challenge is that Cassius Corbulo has abandoned his duties, gone rogue so to say, to go on this hunt. Will the army track him down and bring him to heel?  

Acting outside the law, he and his Christian servant Simo come up against some very troublesome and ruthless characters in their quest and more than once they have to use subterfuge or violence to get out of a tight spot.

I enjoy reading murder mysteries set in Ancient Rome because they offer up a rich variety of people from all walks of Roman life in a completely different and cosmopolitan world and yet these characters share our hopes and fears. The challenges of daily life, however, are not just the never-ending battles of making ends meet before the advent of the welfare state, but the underlying threat of being sold into slavery, of war and insurrection, crime, religious persecution or becoming the target for the irrational behaviour of a crazed emperor. Plenty of scope there for an engaging crime novel.

Earthly Gods by Nick Brown is the sixth book in the Agent of Rome series. Published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2016 in hardback.