- Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd (5 Jan 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099468344
- ISBN-13: 978-0099468349
- Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 11 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 741,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Book Description
Murder and mystery in ancient Athens.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Product Description
In the winter of 330-329 BC Athens itself suffers a series of alarming thefts and home robberies. It seems that nobody is safe. The great philosopher Aristotle helps his former student Stephanos investigate a break-in and brutal murder at the house of one of his Athenian neighbours. The man fingered for the crime turns against Stephanos just as he is planning his marriage. It is difficult to arrange a big fat Greek wedding when someone seems to be trying to kill you. Elsewhere bodies begin to pile up - who will be bludgeoned or stabbed or strangled next? Stephanos' bride is Philomela. Her parental home is Eleusis, famous for the Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone, home of the sacred site of the Mysteries of Eleusis. Religious initiation is open to all adult Greek speakers, slave and free, with the exception of anyone guilty of homicide. Stephanos, Philomela, and Aristotle undertake mystic initiation in a complex ritual whose ultimate secrets cannot be spoken, on pain of death. Eleusis conceals many secrets, and revelation of the truth must await the night of the Mystery celebration itself. This is the fifth novel featuring Aristotle as the first detective of the ancient world, following "Aristotle Detective", "Aristotle and Poetic Justice", "The Secrets of Life", and "Poison In Athens".
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Doody finally brings us to the end of the torturous sub-plot that has pervaded the last few novels. Namely, Stephanos’ wedding to Philomena. It provides an excuse for our laconic sleuth to muse in a post-drunken wedding binge that someone might have chucked a sharp knife at him. In turn, this enables him, post-nuptials, to start to think about things other than the sorry state of his interior and exterior décor, symposiums and solving the odd magpie inspired theft here and there that have not gripped our attention up to this point.
Doody’s slow inexorable plot style drags the unwilling reader along again so that by page two hundred or so of the paperback version we find ourselves wondering exactly what task Stephanos and Aristotle are being set by the author other than responding to a trumped-up charge of boundary poaching by the neighbour of his newly extended family. However, lurking furtively in the background is the murder of the helpful Sophilios and, also, Arhkias’ disclaimer over the amount of drachmae he lost in the incident.
Doody has Philomela express a desire to join the mysteries of Eleusis and this coincides with Aristotle’s slave, for whom his affection grows daily. As the novel progresses we find ourselves bombarded with more and more problems and the clue to it all lies in exactly the fact there is an inundation. Stephanos’ stumbles alarmingly through his Eleusian initiation, gets overly raucous in the Agora as he’s accused of not fulfilling his previous nuptial agreements, finds himself on the receiving end of a knife thrower and a marble head a few times, up on his own tiles and generally harassed left right and centre as he tries to deal with a spurious land ownership charge by Lykon and locate missing children.
By the time we reach our denouement in a pottery shop where we get a quick rash of murders based on the fallings out of a criminal gang, Doody neatly ties up the thievery with Stephanos’ beleaguered life and we come away satisfied that out of the murky randomness was actually a very clever plot. I have to say that I have found the Stephanos mysteries extremely laborious to plough through but this is by far the best so long as you keep gong past page two hundred. It’ll be interesting to see if Stephanos continues to improve.
Doody’s slow inexorable plot style drags the unwilling reader along again so that by page two hundred or so of the paperback version we find ourselves wondering exactly what task Stephanos and Aristotle are being set by the author other than responding to a trumped-up charge of boundary poaching by the neighbour of his newly extended family. However, lurking furtively in the background is the murder of the helpful Sophilios and, also, Arhkias’ disclaimer over the amount of drachmae he lost in the incident.
Doody has Philomela express a desire to join the mysteries of Eleusis and this coincides with Aristotle’s slave, for whom his affection grows daily. As the novel progresses we find ourselves bombarded with more and more problems and the clue to it all lies in exactly the fact there is an inundation. Stephanos’ stumbles alarmingly through his Eleusian initiation, gets overly raucous in the Agora as he’s accused of not fulfilling his previous nuptial agreements, finds himself on the receiving end of a knife thrower and a marble head a few times, up on his own tiles and generally harassed left right and centre as he tries to deal with a spurious land ownership charge by Lykon and locate missing children.
By the time we reach our denouement in a pottery shop where we get a quick rash of murders based on the fallings out of a criminal gang, Doody neatly ties up the thievery with Stephanos’ beleaguered life and we come away satisfied that out of the murky randomness was actually a very clever plot. I have to say that I have found the Stephanos mysteries extremely laborious to plough through but this is by far the best so long as you keep gong past page two hundred. It’ll be interesting to see if Stephanos continues to improve.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Best so far
12 Oct 2005
Format:Hardcover
Doody finally brings us to the end of the torturous sub-plot that has pervaded the last few novels. Namely, Stephanos' wedding to Philomena. It provides an excuse for our laconic sleuth to muse in a post-drunken wedding binge that someone might have chucked a sharp knife at him. In turn, this enables him, post-nuptials, to start to think about things other than the sorry state of his interior and exterior décor, symposiums and solving the odd magpie inspired theft here and there that have not gripped our attention up to this point.
Doody's slow inexorable plot style drags the unwilling reader along again so that by page two hundred or so of the paperback version we find ourselves wondering exactly what task Stephanos and Aristotle are being set by the author other than responding to a trumped-up charge of boundary poaching by the neighbour of his newly extended family. However, lurking furtively in the background is the murder of the helpful Sophilios and, also, Arhkias' disclaimer over the amount of drakhmai he lost in the incident.
Doody has Philomela express a desire to join the mysteries of Eleusis and this coincides with Aristotle's slave, for whom his affection grows daily. As the novel progresses we find ourselves bombarded with more and more problems and the clue to it all lies in exactly the fact there is an inundation. Stephanos' stumbles alarmingly through his Eleusian initiation, gets overly raucous in the Agora as he's accused of not fulfilling his previous nuptial agreements, finds himself on the receiving end of a knife thrower and a marble head a few times, up on his own tiles and generally harassed left right and centre as he tries to deal with a spurious land ownership charge by Lykon and locate missing children.
By the time we reach our denouement in a pottery shop where we get a quick rash of murders based on the fallings out of a criminal gang, Doody neatly ties up the thievery with Stephano's beleaguered life and we come away satisified that out of the murky randomness was actually a very clever plot. I have to say that I have found the Stephanos mysteries extremely laborious to plow through but this is by far the best so long as you keep gong past page two hundred. It'll be interesting to see if Stephanos continues to improve.
Doody's slow inexorable plot style drags the unwilling reader along again so that by page two hundred or so of the paperback version we find ourselves wondering exactly what task Stephanos and Aristotle are being set by the author other than responding to a trumped-up charge of boundary poaching by the neighbour of his newly extended family. However, lurking furtively in the background is the murder of the helpful Sophilios and, also, Arhkias' disclaimer over the amount of drakhmai he lost in the incident.
Doody has Philomela express a desire to join the mysteries of Eleusis and this coincides with Aristotle's slave, for whom his affection grows daily. As the novel progresses we find ourselves bombarded with more and more problems and the clue to it all lies in exactly the fact there is an inundation. Stephanos' stumbles alarmingly through his Eleusian initiation, gets overly raucous in the Agora as he's accused of not fulfilling his previous nuptial agreements, finds himself on the receiving end of a knife thrower and a marble head a few times, up on his own tiles and generally harassed left right and centre as he tries to deal with a spurious land ownership charge by Lykon and locate missing children.
By the time we reach our denouement in a pottery shop where we get a quick rash of murders based on the fallings out of a criminal gang, Doody neatly ties up the thievery with Stephano's beleaguered life and we come away satisified that out of the murky randomness was actually a very clever plot. I have to say that I have found the Stephanos mysteries extremely laborious to plow through but this is by far the best so long as you keep gong past page two hundred. It'll be interesting to see if Stephanos continues to improve.
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
