Falco travels to Ostia to find a missing writer who supplies scandal and political gossip to Rome's public notices. What appears to be an absence caused by bribery or assault becomes connected with shipping, abduction and piracy.
The investigation moves through warehouses, taverns and publishing networks at the imperial port. Falco must also contend with a construction magnate and members of his own family whose activities complicate the search.
Ostia gives the mystery an unusually commercial setting. Grain, shipping contracts, warehouses and information all move through the port before reaching Rome, so a missing gossip writer can become entangled with interests far larger than the newspaper trade. Falco’s search shows how the capital’s appetite for scandal depends on the same networks of movement and patronage that sustain its food supply.
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