| Guest Book Review - All Roads Lead to Murder - A Case from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger, by Albert A. Bell Jr. | |||||||||||||||||
| Reviewed by Irene Hahn | |||||||||||||||||
Pliny, young, impetuous, andin the words of the authorslightly priggish, is nonetheless conscientious and takes command of the investigation until Florus, the governor of Asia Province, can be summoned. A bit unwillingly, Tacitus is drawn into this too. Albert Bell tells us that he has studied Pliny since his graduate days. His portrait is a convincing one, and he does spin a good yarn too! There is a confusing array of suspects: Roman notables who were fellow staffers of Tacitus and the murdered man, a Romanized German merchant, a philosopher, a Greek doctor, a group of women led by a wild-haired witch, a couple of Christians, beautiful slave women Pliny has his work is cut out for him. Not present, but looming in the background, is Regulus, an infamous advocate and legacy hunter back in Rome. At the center of the story is a young and beautiful slave girl of the deceased, who seems to have had a mysterious relationship with her late master. And Pliny is more than taken with her. Being young and impulsive, he does not always weigh his actions, which gets him and Tacitus into a scrape or two and sets back his investigation. On the other hand, Pliny profits from the knowledge of medicine and natural history, imparted to him by his late uncle and adoptive father, Pliny the Elder. The latter's military doings in Judaeapresumed by the authoralso play a part in the story. Woven into all this is the ascent of Christianity, of which Mr. Bell is as much an expert as of Pliny. The story, as told by Pliny himself, is full of suspenseand plenty of red herrings. At what point was Cornutus killed? Did the killer commit the hideous mutilation, or was there more than one person involved? How will Florus, the governor, react to young Pliny's investigation? After all, the boy is only twenty-one years of age! The alert reader, guided by Pliny's descriptions and hints, will arrive at the same conclusion as the narrator well before the dénouement, but it really doesn't matter. Mr. Bell has done his research well and does make the characters and their world utterly believable. In the end, it seems that all's well that ends well. Or does it? Complications surely await Pliny in Rome. Mr. Bell promises us a series, and this reviewer for one looks eagerly forward to the next installment!
Irene Hahn
Reviewer's Note: Mr. Bell is also the author of Daughter of Lazarus which features Pliny too. A review will be forthcoming. All Roads Lead to Murder - A Case from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger
See Irene Hahn's site. The URL for this page is
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