Customer Reviews

Illegally Dead (Marcus Corvinus Mysteries)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This fast paced and engrossing Marcus Corvinus installment finds Marcus and his wife, Perilla, visiting the small town of Castrimonenium, in order to figure out whether or not a local lawyer was murdered.

When Marcus and Perilla receive a letter from their adopted daughter, Marilla, intimating that a murder may have been committed in the town she's currently residing in, they immediately make for Castrimoneium in order to get more information. It turns out that the lawyer, Lucius Hostillius has succumbed to a heart seizure and has passed away. But Lucius' doctor, Hyperion, is not satisfied and fears that someone may have tampered with the dosage. The trouble is that in accordance of Roman law, if Hyperion voices his suspicions, Lucius' household slaves would be rounded up and tortured in order to prise information from them. And Hyperion would rather not say anything unless the evidence that Lucius had been "helped" to his death is conclusive. And so he asks Marcus Corvinus to look into the matter. But Marcus will have to work on the quiet so as not to arouse the interest of the authorities. Can our intrepid investigator pull this off?

I've been a fan of this series ever since I read "Ovid." But I have to admit that fan though I am, I haven't read every single installment in this series. What I have read I have liked immensely; finding the books to be well written, finely paced, taut and full of wonderful historical detail and ambiance. This is all true of "Illegally Dead." David Wishart does a first rate job here of executing and fleshing out this tale and of keeping one guessing as to what exactly is going on and who the guilty parties are. All in all this was a very engrossing and absolutely riveting read -- even as I confess that a couple of thing grated: namely that Marcus seemed to jump to some rather premature assumptions about his suspects based solely on his reactions towards them (and had to be talked around to sense by Perilla); and that I found Marcus' 'tough' street voice to be a little incongruous and a little false. Would a patrician have such a narrative voice? I'm going to have to reread "Ovid" in order to find out.

A competently told, entertaining story, once you accept it for what it is, which is slightly hard-boiled Agatha Christie with togas and snappy dialog. The plot puzzle is all; historical setting is unimportant. With a single exception - the narrator's queasy dread at thought of a forensic autopsy - the main characters are completely ahistorical in their attitudes, while the background of a small Etruscan town circa middle of first century A.D. is just stage furniture and costumes. Even the title is clunky and flat.
Wishart has done much better (see Sejanus or White Murder). I gave Illegally Dead 3 stars but if rating system had permitted a little more than half way between 2 and 3 would have been more accurate.

I didn't enjoy this as much as earlier Wisharts--I have to say that the slangy speech by the protagonist begins to grate--it feels completely out of character for an aristocratic Roman of the period.

I have not read this book yet as I have other to complete first. But if it is like the previous books by the same author, it will be very good.