ROMAN BLOOD

From the papers of Marcus Tullius Cicero comes this first novel, a fictionalization of the immortal Roman orator's first important case--his defense of well-heeled farmer Sextus Roscius on the charge of killing his bated father. The narrator is Gordianus the Finder, hired by Cicero to dig up evidence, and so good at his job that he soon learns the pretext that lured the elder Roscius to his death--a summons from Elena, a young prostitute pregnant with a possible heir; finds where the murder was committed; unearths two witnesses who set him on the track of a brutal conspiracy; and uncovers some sordid truths about the Roscius family in time for Cicero to set off the expected courtroom fireworks. More genuine mystery and detection than in Ron Burns's Roman Nights (see above), with two handsome surprises saved for last.