Price of Freedom, The
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- €7.49
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- €7.49
Publisher Description
The death of a local tax-collector spells trouble for Libertus in this compelling historical mystery.
Having been inveigled into standing for the local curia, responsible for the submission of all local tax, Libertus discovers that any shortfall must be made good by the councillors themselves. So when news arrives that a tax-collector from a nearby outpost has committed suicide, having gambled everything away, Libertus is despatched to make enquiries, in the hope of recovering at least some of the missing revenue. He has also been asked to attend a wedding, in place of his patron, who is expecting a visit from an Imperial Legate.
But the assignment which should have seen Libertus for once treated as an honoured guest begins to take grisly and unexpected turns. As he pieces together the unlikely truth, Libertus finds himself in mortal danger. Freedom, in all forms, is only relative ? but there is a high price for it, sometimes paid in blood ?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Rowe's superb 17th whodunit set in second-century Roman Britain (after 2016's The Ides of June), Libertus, a Gloucester pavement-maker with a knack for solving mysteries, is sorry to hear from his patron, Marcus Aurelius Septimus "one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in all Britannia" that Acacius Flauccus, a tax official from whom Libertus was anticipating a lucrative commission, has hanged himself. The note left near Flauccus's corpse reveals that he took his life out of shame for having lost tax revenue at the gaming table. Certain that the death was a suicide, Marcus is concerned that local government officials will need to repay the shortfall in taxes. Evidence that Flauccus was robbed before his death, however, would shift that financial responsibility to the dead man's estate. Marcus dispatches Libertus to investigate, and the artisan soon finds more questions than answers. Besides effortlessly integrating such period details as telling time in an era before clocks into the narrative, Rowe perfectly balances character and plot.
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