Five For Silver

Rating:
Summary: Great sense of place in fine historical mystery series
Review: A plague is ripping through Constantinople during the reign of Justinian at the very beginning of the Byzantine Empire. So many people are dying that the Emperor has commissioned ships to be filled with bodies, towed to the harbor, and set ablaze. With so many dead, one more wouldn't seem to be a big deal. But John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberland to the Emperor, feels compelled to search for the killer of one man--a longtime friend and former soldier comrad of Peter, John's cook. According to Peter, an angel came, demanding vengence. While John follows Mithra rather than Christianity, he owes his faithful servant the investigation.

In a city being emptied by plague and people fleeing the plague, it's hard to find witnesses but John establishes a possible connection. Gregory, the dead man, had recently witnessed a will. When other witnesses also turn up dead, it seems that John is onto something--but what.

Authors Mary Reed and John Mayer do a wonderful job depicting what was then the greatest and most powerful city in the world. The holy fool, the aspiring poets, the politically savvy and dangerous Empress Theodora, and especially John the Eunuch and his family really come to life.

Reed and Mayer use the mosaic metaphor several times in their book and, in fact, present a bit of a mosaic of Constantinople. Not all of the crimes that John uncovers are connected to one another, but they are connected to the extended family that John has built in the new Rome. FIVE FOR SILVER is therefore a very personal story.

John the Eunuch is one of the most entertaining of the historical mystery series being written today. If you haven't discovered it yet, you're in for a treat.

Rating:
Summary: Five for Silver a Must Read!
Review: The year is 542. Peter, John the Lord Chamberlain's elderly servant, claims a heavenly visitor revealed a murder to him. It transpires that Peter's old army friend has indeed been stabbed, but then John discovers that Gregory was not what he appeared to be. Is the solution to the mystery to be found in a hidden identity, in the will made by a dying ship owner with a wayward
son, or perhaps even amid the oracles in a merchant's garden.

Five for Silver is set in Constantinope against the backdrop of the plague. It is an extemely well written mystery with loads of terrific historical detail and well developed characters you come to care about. The details on the plague will give you the chills just imagining what it must have been like to live thru it. An elaborately plotted mystery that will leave you guessing, speculating and trying to solve it until the very end. Just when
you think you have finally figured it out....you haven't! A must read mystery that will send you scrambling for the first four in this dynamite series.