The Venus Throw

Gordianus the Finder is called on to solve a killing in ancient Rome. The victim is Dio, an envoy from Egypt who had travelled to the city to speak out against the Egyptian king's rule. The case turns personal for Gordianus, because Dio was once his philosophy teacher in Alexandria.

This is a historical mystery in which an investigator who knows the city's streets and people must untangle a death among the political tensions of the Roman world. Saylor is best known for the Gordianus novels, which follow this sleuth through the final decades of the Roman Republic.