The Ionia Sanction
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4.7 • 6 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
"Corby has not only made Greek history accessible—he's made it first-rate entertainment." --Kelli Stanley, award-winning author of Nox Dormienda and City of Dragons
Athens, 460 B.C. Life's tough for Nicolaos, the only investigating agent in ancient Athens. His girlfriend's left him and his boss wants to fire him. But when an Athenian official is murdered, the brilliant statesman Pericles has no choice but to put Nico on the job.
The case takes Nico, in the company of a beautiful slave girl, to the land of Ionia within the Persian Empire. The Persians will execute him on the spot if they think he's a spy. Beyond that, there are only a few minor problems:
He's being chased by brigands who are only waiting for the right price before they kill him.
Somehow he has to placate his girlfriend, who is very angry about that slave girl.
He must meet Themistocles, the military genius who saved Greece during the Persian Wars, and then defected to the hated enemy.
And to solve the crime, Nico must uncover a secret that could not only destroy Athens, but will force him to choose between love, and ambition, and his own life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Corby's excellent second mystery set in fifth-century B.C.E. Greece (after 2010's The Pericles Commission), professional investigator Nicolaos, a prot g of Athens' leading citizen, Pericles, looks into the death of Thorion, the "proxenos" or consular representative for the city of Ephesus in Athens. Thorion was found hanging in his private office after Pericles received a note in which the dead man confessed to betraying his position and his city. Nicolaos soon finds sufficient evidence of homicide to persuade his boss that further inquiry is warranted. Pericles' certainty that a scroll stolen from Thorion is crucial to the safety of Athens sets in motion a complex series of events that sends Nicolaos to Ephesus. Despite the high stakes involved, Corby is able to integrate humor appropriately into the action. His lead, like Steven Saylor's Roman sleuth, Gordianus, manages to retain his integrity, despite being buffeted by powerful forces and morally challenging situations.
