Vengeance at Aulis

by Peter Tonkin Book 2 in the The Trojan Murders series.

First published 2020

Amazon

4.2(119)

Aulis, around 1190 BCE. A thousand Greek ships wait without wind while soldiers crowd the shore in oppressive heat. In a grove sacred to Artemis, a stag and a young priestess are found dead. The army believes the goddess will not release the fleet until the killer is exposed and a child is sacrificed in payment for the crime.

Odysseus is ordered to investigate before superstition breaks military discipline and the expedition collapses. Each discovery is followed by another murder, and both the king and his young assistant become targets. The mystery reworks the tradition of Iphigenia at Aulis as a struggle over evidence, religious fear and the political need to make the fleet sail.