- Hardcover: 340 pages
- Publisher: Sceptre; First edition edition (21 Aug 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0340682825
- ISBN-13: 978-0340682821
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.6 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,203,723 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Germanicus (Marcus Corvinus Mysteries)
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Product Description
Review
'Classic scholar Wishart . . . provides ample historical color to smooth the slow journey to a solution.' (Kirkus Reviews )
Praise for David Wishart: 'Witty, engrossing and ribald . . . it misses nothing in its evocation of a bygone time and place' (Independent on Sunday )
'There's lots of action and a nice plot, full of suspense, to keep you going' (Sunday Telegraph )
'Like Chandler's Marlowe, Corvinus wisecracks his way through a weary world of murder and intrigue until he hunts down the truth. A taut thriller in which ancient Rome springs to life' (The Times ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Praise for David Wishart: 'Witty, engrossing and ribald . . . it misses nothing in its evocation of a bygone time and place' (Independent on Sunday )
'There's lots of action and a nice plot, full of suspense, to keep you going' (Sunday Telegraph )
'Like Chandler's Marlowe, Corvinus wisecracks his way through a weary world of murder and intrigue until he hunts down the truth. A taut thriller in which ancient Rome springs to life' (The Times ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Sunday Telegraph
'There's lots of action and a nice plot, full of suspense, to keep you going'
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
David Wishart was born in Arbroath, Scotland. He studied Classics - Latin and Greek - at Edinburgh University and after graduation taught for four years in a secondary school. He then retrained as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language and worked abroad for eleven years, in Kuwait, Greece and Saudi Arabia. He returned to Scotland in 1990 and now lives with his family in Carnoustie, mixing writing with teaching EFL and study skills at Dundee University.
This is the first in the series of novel by the author featuring Marcus Corvinus, an amateur sleuth and connoisseur of fine wines. The books take a similar theme to the Falco novels of Lindsey Davis, but Falco and Corvinus are from different periods of Roman history. The time period and class of Wishart's sleuth are different. Falco lives in Flavian Rome and has just worked his way into the Equestrian class, while Corvinus is a patrician in the age of Tiberius. However both Corvinus and Falco have a wife behind them, each of who it could be said, is the making of them.
Marcus Corvinus is at peace with the world. What could be better than fine food, fine wine and the company of his beautiful wife. Then everything changes in an instant. He is summoned by the Empress Livia and Corvinus fears the worst. Unlike many of the wines that he is so fond of sampling the Empress has not improved with age. Livia has a favour to ask of him, regarding the death of her grandson, Germanicus. She desperately wants Corvinus to investigate the death. This favour will take Marcus Corvinus into a web of deceit and betrayal.
This is the first in the series of novel by the author featuring Marcus Corvinus, an amateur sleuth and connoisseur of fine wines. The books take a similar theme to the Falco novels of Lindsey Davis, but Falco and Corvinus are from different periods of Roman history. The time period and class of Wishart's sleuth are different. Falco lives in Flavian Rome and has just worked his way into the Equestrian class, while Corvinus is a patrician in the age of Tiberius. However both Corvinus and Falco have a wife behind them, each of who it could be said, is the making of them.
Marcus Corvinus is at peace with the world. What could be better than fine food, fine wine and the company of his beautiful wife. Then everything changes in an instant. He is summoned by the Empress Livia and Corvinus fears the worst. Unlike many of the wines that he is so fond of sampling the Empress has not improved with age. Livia has a favour to ask of him, regarding the death of her grandson, Germanicus. She desperately wants Corvinus to investigate the death. This favour will take Marcus Corvinus into a web of deceit and betrayal.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Marcus Corvinus, David Wishart's ancient Roman sleuth, is very like Marcus Didius Falco, Lindsay Davis's ancient Roman sleuth, Both are smart, streetwise, not overly impressed by authority, and prone to find themselves carrying out secret commissions for Very Imperial People who don't want to go through regular channels. Each has an intelligent (and beautiful) wife who helps in this. Corvinus is at work a few decades earlier than Falco, firmly in the middle of "I, Claudius" times. He is a minor nobleman of independent means, which gives him a material advantage over up-from-the-slums Falco and more of an entree into the upper reaches of society. But the main difference is in the writing. If Lindsay Davis is like Ellis Peters, Wishart is closer to Raymond Chandler. The story telling is a bit more direct and taut, and the cynicism closer to the surface and more freely expressed. Sometimes it's a bit too much, and one wishes he would rein in the anachronism a bit, amusing though it is. But it all makes for a good read.
In this book Corvinus receives instructions from the deliciously evil and devious Empress Livia to carry out an of-the-record inquiry into the events surrounding the death of Germanicus (prince, general, darling of the army and heir presumptive to the throne) which has generated a major political scandal. Readers of Robert Graves will find here a very different scenario from that offered in "I, Claudius" for the same mystery. That is part of the interest of the book, but it stands on its own merits anyway. Enjoy.
In this book Corvinus receives instructions from the deliciously evil and devious Empress Livia to carry out an of-the-record inquiry into the events surrounding the death of Germanicus (prince, general, darling of the army and heir presumptive to the throne) which has generated a major political scandal. Readers of Robert Graves will find here a very different scenario from that offered in "I, Claudius" for the same mystery. That is part of the interest of the book, but it stands on its own merits anyway. Enjoy.
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Once again David Wishart evocatively brings to life Rome in the reign of Tiberius with the unlikeliest of hero's (Marcus Corvinus) caught up in the machinations of the Wart's mother; the Empress Livia. Wishart's writing is impressive in that he manages to pull off the feat of writing in a 1940's American detective genre slang style (you can almost hear Bogart speaking Corvinus's lines in the book) whilst re-creating first century Rome and it's politics at the same time weaving a plausible solution to the death of Germanicus. The story has pace, interest and is darkly humerous. Wishart is at his best when writing about Marcus Corvinus and this is one of the better books of the series.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Germanicus
Well researched and a good story. Just what was Germanicus up to on his perambulations around the eastern provinces? Read more
Published on 14 Jun 2006 by Adrian Cook
Neatly researched and well-plotted romp....
...but, in common with others, this particular reader found the anachronistic dialogue style off-putting.
Published on 17 May 2000
Well-researched, but jarring style
Historically, no fault to find; sadly, as with Wishart's other books, the use of colloquial English to represent subtleties of Latin usage jarred this particular reader.
Published on 5 April 2000
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