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Spies of Rome: Blood & Death
Book 5 in the The Dream of Rome series.
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Blood & Death collects three later Rufus Varro novellas. In Blood & Poison, Agrippa orders the spy to entrap the smuggler and moneylender Publius Dio. Gladiator sends Varro and Manius to investigate a wealthy childhood friend who is building a new gladiator school. Assassin begins with a journey to Capua and the discovery that the agent Varro was meant to meet has been murdered.
The shorter cases concentrate on compromised friendships and the uncertain limits of service to Augustus. Varro is repeatedly asked to approach men who trust him, then determine whether loyalty to Agrippa requires betrayal or killing. The collection expands the criminal and provincial world of the series while retaining its central question: in a regime founded after civil war, can a reluctant spy know when state security has become private vengeance?
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