Foreign Bodies

Set in 42 C.E., Wishart’s engaging 18th whodunit featuring ancient Roman investigator Marcus Corvinus (after 2015’s Trade Secrets) takes Corvinus from Rome to Lugdunum, Gaul, to investigate the murder of Tiberius Claudius Cabirus, a well-respected wine merchant who was stabbed to death in his home. Emperor Claudius is indebted to the victim’s family—Cabirus’s father once pulled Claudius’s father out of the way of a dozen stampeding bulls—and wants Corvinus to bring the killer to justice. In Lugdunum, Corvinus identifies a potential enemy of Cabirus, aristocrat Julius Oppianus, a political rival who unsuccessfully campaigned against the dead man for the position of officiating priest at an annual ceremony considered to be the summit of a Gaul’s political career. The detective finds other motives, and other suspects, once he digs a bit deeper. The action builds to a nicely surprising solution that is one of the series’s best. Readers should be prepared for some anachronistic colloquial language (“Read my lips”). (Sept.)