Raiders of the Nile (The Ancient World)
*Starred Review* Saylor’s long-running Roma Sub Rosa series affords astonishingly vivid views of the tumultuous first century BCE. Saylor has found an ingenious way of showing court intrigues, sea and land battles throughout the empire, and the most common (and lively) street life by creating a fictional detective respected by everyone, from the emperors and senators on down. Roman citizen Gordianus the Finder plays on his knowledge of human nature and politics to solve whatever he’s presented with. Now, Saylor skips back about 40 years (from Caesar’s difficulties with Ptolemy and Cleopatra in 44 BCE) to 88 BCE, when Gordianus, just turned 22, is staying for a time in luxurious Alexandria and is in love with his female slave. This attachment is the fulcrum for the novel. The slave, Bethesda, vanishes from a street fair she was attending with Gordianus. She has either been kidnapped by a band of pirates or has been taken as a slave for a much richer man. And in a twinning device entirely suitable to a Roman drama, the whole mystery is complicated by the fact that Bethesda bears an uncanny resemblance to a woman in the mime troupe whom she and Gordianus met after a performance. As usual with Saylor, a feast of details about Roman cuisine, street life, dress, and social strata is presented here, spiked with the contrast to Alexandrian customs. Another history-mystery that can be devoured on both levels. --Connie Fletcher