On Hist Fic Saturday
Jaffareadstoo is delighted to host today's stop on the Shadows of Athens Blog Tour
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| Orion 7 March 2019 My thanks to the publishers for the invitation to be part of this blog tour |
443 BC, and, after decades of war with Persia, peace has finally come to Athens. The city is being rebuilt, and commerce and culture are flourishing.
Aspiring playwright Philocles has come home to find a man with his throat cut slumped against his front gate. Is it just a robbery gone wrong? But, if so, why didn't the thieves take the dead man's valuables? With the play that could make his name just days away, he must find out who this man is, why he has been murdered - and why the corpse was left in his doorway.
But Philocles soon realises he has been caught up in something far bigger, and there are those who don't want him looking any further,
My thoughts..
Shadows of Athens is an interesting historical murder mystery which is set in ancient Greece and involves an aspiring playwright, called Philocles, who, as the story opens, is really excited that one of his plays is at last being seen by the pleasure loving public. However, when he discovers a body lying dead across the entrance to his home, and with no sign of a robbery, it opens up a whole set of circumstances that Philocles, right on the eve of his success, could really have done without.
I must admit that I don't know too much about ancient Greek history so it took me a little while to be comfortable with the story, however, I found that this didn't really matter as the author does a good job of explaining things. The Greek setting is nicely done and well described for someone like me who isn't familiar with time and place. I enjoyed observing life in 443 BC through the eyes of Philocles as he goes about trying to discover why this murder/mystery should involve him, and of the complicated process of discovery, as he goes about getting to the heart of the mystery.
The author writes well and clearly knows this ancient historical time as this comes across in the attention paid to detail and to the way in which the characters spring into life. The complex politics and the intricate social strata of the time comes across, and it was interesting to see just how the mystery sat against the historical background to the story. There are more than enough twists and turns in the plot to keep you guessing, however, for me, I think it was the recreation of the historical setting which really captured my attention and brought the story to life.
Shadows of Athens is an interesting historical whodunit with a nice combination of both history and mystery.
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