LAST RITES

Ancient Roman nobleman Marcus Valerius Corvinus is again pressed into unwilling service as a sleuth.

This third in a series (Germanicus, p. 116) begins when the body of a Vestal Virgin named Cornelia is found, throat cut, after the nocturnal rite of the Good Goddess. Recently resettled in Rome, Marcus would rather stay home and banter with his tart-tongued bride Ruffia Perilla. But Senator Lucius Arruntius figures that the respectable Marcus will be able to question the “purple-stripers” (Roman officials, including the Vestals) without raising hackles and proceed discreetly enough to avoid public scandal. Suicide looks possible, even likely, until Marcus notices that the knife doesn’t match the house’s cutlery. And there’s more frustration ahead: Among other witnesses/suspects, Cornelia’s weepy maid Niobe, who found the body, seems to know more than she’s telling. Evidently one of the Vestals, who opted out of the ceremony because of illness, was replaced by the vanished Thalia. With a little help from Perilla, Marcus theorizes that Cornelia may be pregnant, or that a male disguised as Thalia took her place. He finds a likely suspect in lovestruck young Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, son and namesake of the influential senator and brother of an oversexed divorcée named Lepida. But the deaths of Niobe and Lepidus, the latter an apparent suicide, return Marcus to square one.

As before, Marcus’ droll observations about Roman life and sexually charged repartee with Perilla are more entertaining than the shaggy, lukewarm whodunit.