Spies of Rome: Books 1–3

by Richard Foreman

Book 3 in the The Dream of Rome series.

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This omnibus collects Blood & Honour, Blood & Vengeance and Blood & Secrets, the three full-length Rufus Varro investigations. In 27 BCE Marcus Agrippa recruits the poet and his former-gladiator bodyguard Manius to uncover a coup against Augustus. Subsequent cases involve the murder of a slave trader, violence directed at Rome’s Jewish quarter and the death of an aristocrat connected to Tiberius and Julia.

The investigations treat Augustan Rome as a city where the end of civil war has not ended political fear. Varro moves among senators, actors, financiers, criminals and members of Caesar’s household, repeatedly discovering that solving a murder may expose information the regime prefers to bury. The collection combines historical detective fiction with espionage and a satirical view of power under the emerging principate.