I Read Books: Two For The Lions

 

Two For The Lions

Falco’s got a new job; auditing people for the census taxes. He and his partner Anacrites – on sick leave from his job as Imperial Spymaster – have been assigned to look into the contractors for the games. Since this is First Century Rome these are animal importers and the owners of gladiatorial schools. Their first target owns a man-eating lion used to execute criminals, who Falco is glad to see as he’s scheduled to execute the serial killer he caught on his previous case.

Unfortunately the lion dies, and it turns out he's been killed. Anacrites tells Falco not to get distracted from their money making plan but Falco can’t help himself. He investigates if the lion had enemies, and more seriously if the beast importer did. He does; originally from North Africa part of their audit is trying to determine if the properties there belong to him or, as he claims, to a brother. He’s from one of three cities in the province, and as might be expected his two main rivals are from the other two cities.

Falco starts pulling at leads, discovers all kinds of crimes going on. There’s an attempt to poison the grain they’re feeding ostriches, and the grain is revealed to be being sold off by whoever supplies the Sacred Geese Of Juno – a serious affair. A very popular gladiator is rumoured to be involved, but he says nothing, all brawn it seems. Then he dies, and the person the rumour came from vanishes – bought out from his gladiator contract, an extremely rare and suspicious event. But Falco can’t solve it and eventually they hand in their audit and their bill.

The Palace fobs them off with a much smaller amount and Falco throws it all in and takes his family on holiday. But to North Africa, where one brother-in-law has eloped and another brother-in-law can pay their fares by going to buy horses for the chariot teams. And while he’s there he might just find some answers.

The central mystery, of how a lion was killed, is intriguingly baroque, and a fun hook to hang a look into the logistics and industry of running gladiatorial games. Despite this it gets quite dark at moments, as befits a murder mystery.

Read This: Skullduggery amongst gladiatorial contractors
Don’t Read This: Lions killed by people; people killed by lions