This is the book that started it all

books:


	• Nobody Loves a Centurion (SPQR VI) John Maddox Roberts St. Martin's Griffin, 2003 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

One of the best in the series

The SPQR series is by far my favorite Roman mystery series, and this is one of the best. Roberts is tops in bringing the details of Roman life into the story without swamping the reader with too much information; he expertly brings the ancient world convincingly to life, while telling a fast-paced whodunit.

In this novel, Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger travels to Gaul. While he solves the mystery that inevitably ensues, we are treated to a vivid description of life in a Roman military camp. I am not a fan of military history and generally find battle scenes and military details extremely boring, but Roberts make it fascinating. This is a rare example of a novel which can teach you something while entertaining you.

The SPQR series doesn't seem to have attracted as many readers as Steven Saylor and Lindsey Davis, and it's a shame, as Roberts is by far the best writer of the three. An ideal Roman mystery should tell a good tale while immersing you in the ancient world, and no one does this quite as brilliantly as John Maddox Roberts.

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Fantastic Read

The protagonist, Decius Caecilius Metellus, is a Senator of Rome and a newly arrived junior officer at Julius Caesar's camp at the beginning of Caesar's Gallic Wars. After a Centurion who is savagely disciplining turns up dead, Metellus must find the killers. Metellus' search is complicated by the fact that he is in a war zone with three armies massing for war, everyone thinks he is an incompetent boob, and his habit of making enemies of everyone. Metellus determine whether the assassins were Germans, Helvetii, legionaries, or Druids in a matter of days.

This book had a realism that I sometimes found missing in Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa series (the other great series of late-Republican based historical mysteries) in that Roberts' Metellus is not so shockingly moralistic as Saylor's Gordianus could be.

I stayed up past 2am two nights in a row to finish this book, it was that good. I just put the rest of this series on my wishlist.

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Decius Metellus Forever!

Oh how I love this series! I wish bookstores in Canada kept it on their shelves because I can't bear waiting for them when I order them from Amazon.ca (although Amazon is so prompt, they can't deliver within a minute)
This one has Decius Metellus at his best. He's told when he first arrives in camp, dusty and unshaven, that he should spruce up for the General, so he has Hermes shave and bathe him and goes into Caesar's tent wearing his full parade armor. Needless to say the laugh is on Metellus, since Caesar and his staff are in their informal duds.
But serious stuff is soon afoot. One of Caesar's confidents, his Primus Pilus Centurion no less, has been killed in no man's land - and not by the enemy, who are encamped too close for comfort. The accused murderer is a Metellus family client. Decius has two weeks to discover who really killed the centurion and why, or the young soldier will be executed and Decius and the Metellus family will be discredited - not a good thing for a man whose dad the senator, pro-consul, censor, etc. does not take kindly to sons and clients besmirching the family honour.

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This is the book that started it all

I picked this book up in the library because it looked moderately interesting and immediately fell in love. I have since purchased five more books in this series. If possible I would recommend a new reader begin with book one since it helps the story line and builds the characters but this is not required to understand any of the books. I have also re-read this book twice; something out of the ordinary for me. I am not going to go into detail regarding plot and story line since I hope you read it for yourself.

Sixth in the SPQR Series

John Maddox Roberts is the pseudonym of Mark Ramsay, author of numerous works of science fiction and fantasy, in addition to his successful historical SPQR mystery series. He lives in New Mexico with his wife.

When the famous Julius Caesar arrived in Gaul, he announced "I Came, I Saw, I Conquered." When Decius Metellus arrives from Rome he that the conquered part at least, is very far from the truth, in fact the campaign seems to be stagnating.

Decius's arrival does little to placate Caesar's temper. The great general has been waiting form reinforcements promised to him. An intake of fresh blood to kick start the invasion again. Instead of that he has been sent one man ridiculously decked out in military parade frippery but very short on any military accomplishment. Decius is accompanied not by eager troops chomping at the bit to get at the enemy, but by one reluctant slave.

But of course trouble follows Decius like a bad smell and when Vinius, supposedly the most hated centurion in the army is found murdered Caesar remembers that his newest recruit has a reputation for solving mysteries.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

Like so many young men in later generations, Roman playboy/detective Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger is faced with the necessity of serving in his country's armed forces. Since a dangerous enemy has become powerful in the politics of Rome, Decius is just as well out of the city for a while. He sets out to join Caesar in Gaul (where the general has come and seen, but has as yet not been able to conquer. The occupying Roman army is at a standstill. When Decius shows up in full parade regalia (much to the amusement of the more informally uniformed veterans) and accompanied only by his young personal slave. Caesar sets him the task of discovering who murdered one of his centurions, a cruel and unfair officer feared and hated by every man of the one hundred soldiers under him. A further prod to Decius is that the main suspect is a youth whose father is a close friend of the Metellus family. With Caesar's decree that another killer be found in a matter of hours or the young man dies, Decius has his work cut out for him.

John Maddox Roberts's series set in the first century A.D. vividly brings to readers a strong sense of the everyday life of the ancient Romans in the context of our own.

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