One for Sorrow
By Mary Reed and Eric Mayer
3/5
()
About this ebook
In Byzantium, the capital of the 6th century Roman Empire, annual games are held to celebrate the founding of the city. Several courtiers, obliged by office to attend, idly watch the chariot races and the bear baiting from the imperial box. Suddenly they—and the crowd—are electrified as a magnificent bull surges into the arena. Those who worship Mithra make quiet reverence to the sacred animal while a trio of bull leapers enters in his wake. John, Lord Chamberlain to the Christian Emperor, is among those surprised into breathing tribute. He soon receives a further shock: surely the lovely young girl vaulting the beast had once been his lover.
Later, making his way home through the thronged streets, John stumbles over the body of his friend Leukos, Keeper of the Plate. There are plenty of witnesses: an Egyptian brothel keeper, a young mason working on the Church of the Holy Wisdom, a mad stylite, a henpecked innkeeper, and the bull leapers from Crete. Now duty and guilt demand that John discover the murderer....
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Reviews for One for Sorrow
49 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A good mystery set in the time of Justinian at Constantinople (~550 A.D.). I liked the setting and the main character John, Lord Chamberlain for Justinian.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rating: 3.25* of five The Book Description: Byzantium, capitol of the 6th century Roman Empire, simmers a rich stew of creeds, cultures, and citizens with a sprinkling of cutthroats and crimes. John, Emperor Justinian’s Lord Chamberlain, supervises a Christian court while himself observing the rites of Mithra. Thomas, a knight from Britain; Ahasuerus, a soothsayer; and two ladies from Crete stir up events and old memories for John, who must discover how the visitors link to the death of a treasury official. My Review: First Mystery Novel Syndrome: Introduce characters, drop them for north of two chapters, come back and explain why they're game-changers, drop them for north of two chapters, and then shuffle them off-stage unceremoniously.Then kill people the main character doesn't much care about, and make them part of the final solution. Describe dead bodies in such a way that the savvy mysterian will be wondering why the sleuth doesn't spot something immediately; explain this away with Backstory Stress Disorder.Set your story in a transitional time in history, which allows you to do interesting things with characters' beliefs and ideas. Skate along the surface of this possibility. Offer simultaneously a little too much and nowhere near enough of the tensions this would naturally create between the characters, instead of within them.But in the end, after getting past the utterly urpsome description of a man being gelded, this first mystery in an ongoing series is just on the knife-edge of good enough to keep me going.