The Bull Slayer: A Plinius Secundus Mystery

By Bruce Macbain

A turbulent frontier province, rotten with corruption and seething with hatred of Rome—a barbarian god whose devotees may include a murderer —a clever and unscrupulous faith healer who knows everyone’s secrets—a boy who struggles toward manhood though stricken with the Sacred Disease: these are the elements in a mystery that Pliny, newly appointed governor of Bithynia, confronts when a high Roman official is found murdered on a desolate hillside, miles from the capital. But as Pliny pursues one baffling lead after another, he is being betrayed where he least expects it:his beautiful wife, neglected and lonely in an alien city, falls desperately in love with a handsome young provincial—an affair which threatens to bring not only pain but ruin to Pliny’s career. All these threads come together in a surprising and tragic finale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Release date: Mar 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781615954292

Bruce Macbain

Bruce Macbain holds a BA in Classics from the University of Chicago and a PhD. in Ancient History from the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught Greek and Roman history at Vanderbilt and Boston University. He lives with his wife in Brookline, MA.

Reviews for The Bull Slayer

[janerawoof · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Second outing of Pliny the Younger in this particular series--years have passed since Pliny's first case and now Pliny is Governor of Bithynia. He is given the commission to clean up the corrupt finances of his predecessors. There's the murder of an unpleasant man, a time-served centurion named Balbus. Pliny sets about solving the crime. The Cult of Mithras is involved in this murder and in others occurring during the course of the story. This connection was why I picked up the book in the first place. Most of the characters didn't engage my interest except for Pliny himself and the epileptic youth, Aulus. The Calpurnia [Pliny's wife] subplot degenerated into pure trashy soap opera and her fate left room for a sequel. I won't rush out to read it. There was really nothing on Mithraism I didn't already know [and I'm surprised such an astute man as Pliny--or his centurion, Aquila--didn't connect it with the murder early on. Clues left in certain correspondence were pretty obvious.]I generally give high marks to the particular Roman fiction I read, but this one was a disappointment. The Albert A. Bell Jr. Pliny mystery series is far superior.

[stewartry · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I started the year in ancient Rome, care of Netgalley (thank you). Well, no, not Rome itself, but the Empire in general and what is now part of Turkey specifically – Bithynia. Plinius Secundus, called Pliny by those around him (or Gaius by those closest to him, just to mess with your head) and Pliny the Younger by history, has been sent to this barbaric outpost to investigate and clean up the corruption that is rampant there among the Greeks – or, as the Romans patronizingly refer to them, Greeklings. The previous governor played fast and loose with lots and lots of money, and when he left – not quite in disgrace – he took a lot of the moveables with him, so now Pliny, his beloved wife Calpurnia, and his household – including the freed slaves he and his wife find indispensable, Ione and Zosimus – not only has to cope with insolent and indolent slaves, a disgruntled and resentful populace, and a corrupt and snobbish Roman community, but also a residence that has been left uncomfortable and ill-kept. It's a challenge. But Pliny has the confidence of the emperor. A new roadblock is thrown in his way when suddenly a Roman official is murdered. He was an unpleasant man, and corrupt, but his death is highly inconvenient – and given that less than a hundred years ago there was a rebellion and slaughter of Romans right there in Bithynia, Pliny is anxious to keep things as calm and steady as possible. Did the murder have something to do with this cult of Mithras that keeps creeping in around the edges? Was it because of money, and if so was it business or family? Was it political? Could it have been jealousy? (Nah.) Before Pliny can answer any of this, he is called to another scene of death … For a good percentage of this book, I had a five-star rating dancing before my eyes. The writing was very fine, and the characters were well-rounded, dialogue felt "period" without being patronizing or archaic. The setting was vibrant in all its sordidness and felt alive and current, both alien and familiar. It was when part of the plot began to devolve into soap opera and a character I had really liked suddenly became Too Stupid To Live, and when it was – in one gut-wrenching scene – revealed that absolutely no one was faithful or trustworthy: that was when my opinion of the book started to slide. Wait. I take it back. One person was faithful and trustworthy. He didn't last long. So help me, I can't imagine why writers still insist on putting boar hunts into their books. The minute someone says there will be a boar hunt I know there is, literally, no exaggeration, at least a 90% probability that someone's gonna die. It's ridiculous. It has become a cliché. Someday I'm going to go back through all the historical (and fantasy, for that matter) novels I've ever read and put together a compendium of Deadly Boar Hunts. People: STOP IT. None of this makes it a bad book (hence the fact that it retained four (three and a half, really) of those five stars). But it was depressing. And it took the plot in a direction almost directly opposite from where I either wanted or expected it to go. The synopsis on Goodreads states that the finale is tragic. I don't think so. "Tragic" would have had me in tears, surely, or feeling something; this … this just had me thinking "wait – you mean – aw, come on, isn't killing that person off a little convenient, and kind of mean? And what about – oh, you're kidding. One smallish thing that did bug me was the contrived cleverness of Pliny's man Zosimus. He would for the most part remain silent, as befitted a freed slave in the company they were keeping, but when he spoke up it was always pithy, always clever – and often coined those words and phrases used today. Clew = clue, for example. It was a little too cute. I really enjoyed Pliny, and he's a great choice to center a series around – he knew everybody. Suetonius was a fun character, and I'd love to read any of his works that have survived. I was looking forward to a first century detective series with these two, with a solid scholarly grounding and a sense of humor… Now I don't know if I'll keep going with it. A disappointment. (However: the audiobook of the first in the series was narrated by Bronson Pinchot. Hm.)