Surgeon Getorius Asterius, his wife Arcadia, a eunuch archpriest of a pagan fertility cult, the female head of an heretical church, and an ambitious senator in league with a Chinese merchant: these are the prime movers in this mystery set at Ravenna, Italy, in A.D. 440. When Getorius is summoned to examine the castrated body of a youth found by Thecla in her Arian church, who is the sobbing "Vestal Virgin" nearby? Why is the senator smuggling counterfeit Western coins to the Eastern Empire, and unknown Chinese products back to Ravenna? The murdured Thecla's coded message leads to a secret tunnel and the sinister temple of Cybele, whose devotees are self-mutilated eunuchs. In a stunning climax, the conspirators try to escape Ravenna, planning to sell one product in Egypt, but failing to recognize the far more deadly nature of the other.
ALBERT NOYER was born in Switzerland but raised in Detroit, Michigan. He pursued his interest in art at Wayne State University, then worked as a commercial artist before entering a 30-year Detroit Public Schools career teaching art at the technical/vocational school level, and as part time art history instructor at St. Mary's College, Orchard Lake, MI. In 1986, after retiring in New Mexico with his wife, Jennifer, he has continually exhibited watercolor paintings and woodcut prints in numerous regional exhibits and garnered awards. His artwork and writing were featured in the March 1994 New Mexico Magazine, and the December 2006 Mature Life in New Mexico supplement of the Sunday Journal.
As a writer, Noyer is a member of SouthWest Writers and Croak & Dagger, the local chapter of Sister in Crime. The Toby Press LLC published his 5th century historical mystery novels: The Saint's Day Deaths (2000), The Secundus Papyrus (2003) and The Cybelene Conspiracy (2005 - NM Book Co-op Finalist, 2007.) Yet to be published in the series are Death at Pergamum, set in ancient Turkey, Unholy Sepulcher in which husband/wife protagonists, Getorius and Arcadia, travel the Holy Land of A.D. 440-41. The Kashat Deception, (2008) based on research in Egypt, completes the mystery series.
Alberix the Celt (2009, unpublished) is an epic retelling of Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, but from the viewpoint of a Celtic youth who survives the war and eventually becomes a Gallo-Roman magistrate in Augusta Raurica, now the Roman ruins at Augst, Switzerland.
The Ghosts of Glorieta / A Fr. Jake Mystery (2011) begins in Michigan and quickly moves to a fictional village in New Mexico's Rio Communities. www.albertnoyer.com
