The Gods Help Those (A Case from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger 7)

Pliny the Younger hoped to improve relations with his unpleasant wife and her mother by investing in a warehouse on the Tiber with them. Now the building has collapsed due to heavy rains. Pliny discovers several dead people inside, including a man with a narrow red “equestrian” stripe on his tunic, indicating aristocracy. He wasn’t killed by the cave-in, however, but by a knife wound in his back. When Pliny gives the body a forensic examination, he finds two more puzzling things: a circumcision (unusual in Rome), and thirty pieces of silver in his sewn-closed mouth. To further complicate matters, Pliny’s servant and lover, Aurora, finds a live baby in the wreckage. What connection does the funeral of a consul have with these events? Queen Berenice of Judaea, the mistress of the late emperor Titus, soon enters the story with her sons—one of whom is an assassin, a member of the Sicarii. He’s determined to avenge the defeat of his people and the destruction of their temple—no matter who might get in the way....