The year is 542. Peter, John the Lord Chamberlainโs elderly servant, claims a heavenly visitor revealed a murder to him. It transpires that Peterโs old army friend has indeed been stabbed, but then John discovers that Gregory was not what he appeared to be.
Is the solution to the mystery to be found in a hidden identity, in the will made by a dying ship owner with a wayward son, or perhaps even amid the oracles in a merchantโs garden?
Johnโs quest leads him to churchmen and whores, lawyers and bear trainers. Suspects include a dealer in dubious antiquities, a resourceful bookseller, a court poet fixated on bereavement, and a holy fool who outrages the city by dancing with the dead and invading the empressโ private bath.
Only a man of unbending principle could hope to find justice in a terrified city where the good and the bad are struck down indiscriminately, where disorder rules, and where witnesses may die before they can be questioned. A city, in short, where death is the murdererโs accomplice.
From Publishers Weekly
Reed and Mayer surpass last year's fine Four for a Boy with this superb fifth entry in their series to feature smart, determined and credibly human sleuth John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlain to the Emperor Justinian. In the year 542, in the plague-stricken city of Constantinople, John's aged servant, Peter, has an angelic vision telling him that Gregory, a close friend from his army days, has been murdered. Distraught, Peter asks John to find the killer. Verifying that Gregory has indeed been stabbed to death, John proceeds to interview everyone who may be connected to the crime from lawyers to doctors, from prostitutes to a holy fool who dances with the dead in the streets, perhaps the most striking of several memorable supporting characters. Peter's falling ill and the return home of John's daughter complicate a riveting plot that never dips into melodrama. Not just a chilling backdrop, the plague that runs rampant through the city, afflicting rich and poor alike, is linked to the murder. The conflict between Christians and pagans adds further weight to this sterling historical page-turner.
Copyright ยฉ Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Readers familiar with this entertaining historical-mystery series will recognize that this is the fifth installment. (Each volume in the series has a number in its title.) The year: 542 AD. The place: Constantinople. John the Eunuch, the emperor Justinian's Lord Chamberlain, learns that his servant and friend, Peter, had a vision in which a man was murdered. It turns out that there really was a murder and that the victim, an old friend of Peter's, was a powerful figure in the customs office. Who killed him and why? In a John the Eunuch novel, the mystery is only half the fun. The other half comes from the delightful supporting characters (in this case, a shady antiques dealer, a bookseller, and a poet, among others) and the crafty way in which the authors discreetly sneak in little nuggets of historical information. The historical-mystery series that stand the test of time are those that put story first and research second. This is one of those series. David Pitt
Copyright ยฉ American Library Association. All rights reserved