Disturbed by a commotion during a visit to a brothel, Stephanos comes across the body of one of the earlier litigants, who has obviously been poisoned with hemlock. The dead man had recently married again and his widow is accused of the murder by her stepson, but is she really guilty? Aristotle and Stephanos investigate.
In this adventure we hear about Aristotle's students' work on a book about the Athenian Constitution and, thanks to another brothel visit, Stephanos gets involved in the famous real-life case of the hetaira, Phryne. Phryne was accused of profaning the mysteries of Eleusis, and when the case looked as if it would go against her, Phryne's defender in court either showed the jury her breasts or stripped her naked in court (depending on whose story you believe -- Doody goes with the stripped naked account), whereupon she was enthusiastically acquitted by the all-male jury. Apparently Phryne means 'toad' in Greek, which seems an odd name for someone in her profession. I read somewhere that it referred to her complexion, which doesn't really seem to improve matters.
Doody obviously feels she has now established Aristotle and Stephanos and the world they inhabit, since we do not get any of the beautiful descriptions of daily life we had in the earlier books. Instead we focus much more on the investigation of the mystery itself and the book works well on that level. Despite all the brothel visits the book is not particularly sexually explicit, and despite the real danger of torture the slave characters face should they have to give evidence, it is not particularly violent either. I'm looking forward to the next one in the series.
