Pegasus was a charioteer and at the height of his fame, a sporting superstar. So why did he suddenly transfer from the Greens, Rome's premier team, to the second-division Whites? More pressingly, who knifed him in a back alley and why are the authorities doing a cover-up?
Marcus Valerius Corvinus, minor aristocrat and amateur sleuth, was around and he can't resist a mystery. He knows he shouldn't get involved. Chariot racing is the biggest thing in Rome and the money involved in betting is huge. There is a murky side to the business, with allegations of race-fixing and horse-nobbling, and some very unpleasant characters who are well-connected enough not to be put off by Corvinus's status if they decide to do some harm. Politics are involved and Corvinus doesn't do politics. And early on someone drops in the name of Corvinus's least-favourite imperial, Prince Gaius (the future emperor Caligula), a fanatical Greens supporter.
Of course our hero cannot ignore the challenge and the result is a highly detailed and typically engrossing Wishart-Corvinus good read played out in Rome, the port of Ostia, and the green and fertile (things change) province of Sicily.
Wishart has a characteristic approach in his Marcus Corvinus novels. The hero has a tendency to wilful anachronism in speech and attitude that is refreshing at first, though it can be overdone and grow a bit tedious. The author avoids Latin words so the Forum becomes Market Square, togas are mantles and so on. The effect is to draw you in to the ancient world while making it seem more familiar - which makes it all the more shocking when you get a brutal reminder that this was a different world with very different standards, and Corvinus is ultimately a man of his time who sees nothing strange in those standards.
The Marcus Corvinus novels occupy a distinct niche in the well-filled range of detective novels set in Ancient Rome. They differ markedly from Steven Saylor on the one hand and Lindsay Davis on the other. And they are well worth reading.