Review

Illegally Dead is the latest in the Corvinus series of murder mysteries set in Rome in the 1st century C.E. This one actually takes place outside Rome, in a small town called Castrimoenium, where a local lawyer has died under suspicious circumstances. For a variety of reasons the local authorities are unwilling to open a formal investigation until it is certain that it was murder. Corvinus is called in unofficially and soon the bodies start piling up.

The result is a seemingly very tangled web that, we eventually learn, is the playing out of events from 20 years earlier.

This is a very well plotted novel. And it includes the humor and wisecracking tough-guy schtick that we’ve come to expect from this series.

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