‘Oh, and by the way, please could you come down here as soon as possible? Clarus thinks there’s been a murder.’em>

When Corvinus receives the letter, with its tantalising PS, from his adopted daughter, Marilla, he hot-foots it to Castrimoenium at once. Not that everyone agrees that Lucius Hostilius was murdered. Poison was apparently the means of death, but after all, Hostilius was terminally ill: it was only a matter of time.

As we follow Corvinus, clue by clue, on his tenth case, we allow ourselves to be pleasurably diverted by rumours of Meton’s love life – and by an authentic recipe for fish-pickle sauce…

read the 1st chapter