Book Review: A Mist of Prophecies

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

A Mist of Prophecies     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Steven Saylor
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Historical
Series: Gordianus the Finder # 9
St. Martin’s, May 2002, $24.95, 288 pp.

In 48 BC Rome is engaged in a great civil war with both sides led by a powerful warrior. Though the battles take place in the outer province of Thessaly, Rome is being drained by the war as inflation is running rampant and people are going into debt with barely enough money to eat.

Gordianus the Finder finds himself besieged at every turn. He is worried about the debt to his banker, deeply concerned with his wife’s mysterious and lingering illness, and frets over the end of his relationship with his adopted son Meto. When Cassandra, a mysterious woman who appear in Rome one day sprouting prophecy, dies in the Finder’s arms saying she was poisoned, he takes it upon himself to bury her and find her killer. His quest takes him into some of the richest and most influential homes in Rome.

A MIST OF PROPHECIES takes us into the heart of Rome during a civil war that makes the inhabitants of the city wary, fearful, and uncertain of the future for themselves and for their glorious Empire. Stephen Saylor descriptions of the times are so detailed that the audience can picture the city in the mind’s eye. Experience grants the hero the wisdom to search out the killer using his brains while not relying on brawn as he did in his youth. This is a fascinating work, as much a historical novel as it is a mystery.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner