The first copy was defective, so this is replacing it.

Book Ray

Loopy1
Rillaith
YowlYY

Third in Saylor's Roma sub Rosa series, it takes Gordianus the finder into the Etruscan countryside. While there Cicero asks him to keep an eye on the radical populist senator, Catilina, and is drawn into a web of deceit, intrigue and murder.

This is the thickest (in size - 700 pages) of the series!

Postal release to Loopy1 today.

This enormous tome turned up on my doorstep today. Thanks, I'm looking forward to reading it. I've really enjoyed all the Gordianus books so far.

Just wanted to say that I'm still reading this one! It's a big book, and quite heavy going so far as it's much more political than the others.

But I'm persevering, and the train journey to the London meetup today should help move things along :-)

I finally managed to finish this book today. I found it harder going than the other Gordianus books, less about mystery and more about politics. It did get going more towards the end though, and was worth reading because of the historical background. It also portrayed clearly the political machinations behind assassinations of character and of people.
I'll be passing it on once I have an address. Thanks for sharing!

Off to Rillaith today.

Arrived safe and sound today, but it's a couple down the pile due to a bit of a backlog at the moment. Been looking forward to more of these!

I've loved reading this one, and despite its daunting size it's gone quite quickly. It would have been faster if I hadn't left it behind at two different friends' houses mid-way-through, though!

Will ahve this finished by the end of the week, so will be journeying on to YowlYY very soon. Thanks for letting me read it!

Thanks to Rillaith for bringing this to the Unconvention, where it was *very safely* handed over...yes, it took me 10 minutes to get it out of the jiffy bag, thanks to the cellotape :)

I will be starting this tomorrow, and it will be my excuse for not doing any housework during the hot hours ;)

I did not start this one in July as promised... it took me several weeks before I could tackle the 600+ pages, but once started, I was hooked just like with the previous novels. I met a Gordianus who is several years older than in the last adventure, a more cautious side is shown, maybe also due to the fact that he founds himself with a real family and a daughter, and the new scenary of the farm has been a pleasant change from the city background. I agree that this one is more political, but I found it extremely interesting and helped me remembering some of the literature lessons I had when I was 16...the so called "Catilinarie", written by Cicero, do not have the same taste now, after reading Saylor's novel! Now I look forward to the next episode...

I have been in contact with Mastulela to have this book travel a bit more, and she agreed that since rainbow3 has been so far so enthusiastic about Gordianus' adventures, it is only fair to have it moving to Edinburgh fairly soon.

Thanks again for a great read!

Update 16.10.06: the book is leaving today to Edinburgh...happy reading!

What a treat I am chortling with gleeful anticipation. I plucked it with delight from the hands of Ken the post man as I left the flat in a tearing hurry on Tuesday (17th October) and was unable to open it till that evening. So now a fast journal to let you know it has arrived! I am thrilled to have it and am delighted you were kind enough YowlYY to offer it to me. Great big, huge thank you’s!

UPDATE: 30 Nov 06, St Andrews Night ;-) I wrote that journal entry but have been unable to add it to the site till now, SO HUGE APOLOGOES FOR THIS LATE, LATE, LATE ENTRY.

Now the next embarrassment ~ is that I have actually read it but forgotten to update my flash drive with my review, so cannot add it now. It will be added though, I promise. I can easily tell you all that I really enjoyed this and yes a whole doze of historical stuff that i sped through I'll admit. However the weight of that element gave me great confidence in recommending this series to a now-retired classicist. He sounded very interested and in time I expect I shall hear more. Needless to say he's off to hunt in his local library as he wants to start at the beginning of the series.

PS ~ Any thoughts anyone on whom to send this to next???

RELEASE NOTES:

utterly thrilled to have been contacted by kizmiaz who is bouncing and keen to have this. Yahoo!!!
I am planning posting this off in the coming week, whenever i receive kizmiaz's address. Very happy reading to you kizmiaz.

UPDATE: Wed 14th March book posted yesterday, by surface post.

Just got it, thank you very much rainbow3. I loved the Scotich brochures too, yours is one of the countries that I'd really love to visit. Who knows maybe one of these days... we'll see, anyway if I do get there I'll most certainly get in touch with you.
Thanks again for sharing the book.

It took me a while to get to it but I really enjoyed this book; it’s actually the best book I’ve read by Steven Saylor.
I’ve read Roman Blood and Arms of Nemesis and enjoyed the second more than the first mainly because I’m not much of a “whodunnit” books fan but especially because Gordianus becomes more of a character in the second book. But this one takes the cake, this is way more than a whodunit, this is an historical novel with a bit of mystery but dealing mainly with the political world at the end of the Roman republic and the mischief of professional politicians, this rang a few loud bells (just check Cicero’s arguments against Catilina and his use of rumours and then think George W. Bush and the rumours about chemical weapons in Iraq in 2002).
Catilina is a riddle all by himself mainly because of the scarce information we have on him (only his enemies wrote about him so it’s like getting the story on Saddam as written only by Bush Jr.) and the author makes good choices in trying to show the readers the other side of the story and its possible ramifications.
With this book it gets very easy to see how the Roman republic couldn’t fail to collapse in a few years.

Reserved for yorkshire-lass

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Hope you enjoy it for yorkshire-lass.

The book arrived safely today,thank you kizmiaz. I'm looking forward to reading this but as Mt TBR is massive at the monent it may take me a while to get to it.

Got to it at last! I must admit that the size of this was daunting to begin with, but once I'd started it I got so into it that it only took about four days to read it.It was more political than the previous books but because it's so well written and not at all "dry" I found it fascinating.
Thanks so much for sending it to me kizmiaz,and I'm looking forward to the next one!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

This is now on its way to conto in Portugal, who is another Gordianus fan. Hope you enjoy it!

Got it, thank you very, very much yorkshire-lass!
I can't wait to get started on this so highly recommended volume of the series. Will come here afterwards to share my thoughts.

Wow, what a brilliant piece of (big) work, Saylor gives us with this book!

I loved every minute I spent reading it and I was in awe with the almost pictorical details on the political and electoral systems in the Roman Republic.

I also think that Saylor did a wonderful job with the fictioned descriptions of the Catilinian affair (curiously, today "catilinaria" in italian means something like 'bitter invective') opening some doors but not choosing sides in a mystery that will forever be.

Now I'm a bit afraid of getting on with the rest of the series for I guess I'll be looking for something more of this in the other books, which I won't probably find.

Thank you once more yorkshire-lass, for the opportunity to read this book. I will now try to convince my brother to read this one, because I think he'd like it.