Early Reviews
All roads lead to a masterful blend of history and mystery. Albert Bell has written a wonderful book, with splendid
characters, vivid history, and a fair and puzzling mystery. I heartily recommend it.
--Barbara D'Amato, Award winning author of three mystery series, Past President of Mystery Writers
of America and Sisters in Crime International.
Pliny and his friend Tacitus are engaging, complex characters; the story is fascinating. Bell successfully captures
the essence of what it was to be a Roman citizen as easily as he crafts the nuances of early Christianity and the burden of
slavery in the ancient world.
--Lynda S. Robinson, author of the Lord Meren series of ancient Egyptian mysteries
In his complex murder mystery, Albert A. Bell, Jr. has brought ancient Smyrna to life with two well-known Romans from
history, Pliny and Tacitus, and many others who, encumbered by greed or malice, populate his novel with vivid details of dress
and smells and tastes, together with the dirt and viciousness of the late first century after Christ. (O)thers . . .leave
a memory that lingers in the reader's mind--the beautiful slaves, the Christian physician, the narrator himself who, unlike
(most) aristocratic Romans, was repelled by gore and the heartlessness of Imperial Rome. But it is Smyrna who stays with us,
with all her mixed population, her location, her tragedies, and her filthy inn.
--Katerina K. Whitley, author of Seeing for Ourselves: Biblical Women Speak Out. Former editor of
Cross Current and Lifeline.
