4.5 stars
First Sentence: Nobody was poisoned at the dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica–though in retrospect, that was quite a surprise.
Thoughts: You will be shocked—shocked!—to learn that there’s been scheming and conniving behind the scenes at the Emperor’s palace. Anacrites’ position as chief spy is being threatened by the ambitious secretary Claudius Laeta. Falco ends up in the middle of this power struggle when Laeta invites him to the annual dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica, although he doesn’t know it at first. Subsequent events prove quite enlightening for our intrepid informer, however.
At the dinner Falco meets several of the titular olive oil producers as well as Helena’s less-favorite brother Aelianus who’s recently returned from his tour of duty in Hispania. He also runs into Anacrites and his guest Valentinus, who turns out to be a spy as well. The entertainment for the evening is provided by a fetching Baetican dancer who performs as Diana the Huntress.
After dinner Falco is faced with a dilemma. Someone gave him a huge jar of garum* for Helena who’s been having a touch of the pregnancy cravings. He’s also extremely drunk. Fortunately he can get a pair of slaves to help him lug the jar home. Unfortunately he forgot he moved across the street in the last book and goes back to his sixth-floor apartment. He goes home shame-faced the next morning to an angry wife, but his shame and her anger vanish when they learn that Anacrites and Valentinus were attacked while going home after dinner. Valentinus is dead. Anacrites is badly wounded. Falco finds clues at the scenes of the crimes that implicate the Diana dancer, dumps Anacrites at his mother’s house so the killers don’t know they missed one, and heads over to the palace to tell Laeta what’s up.
Laeta suspects the olive oil producers who hired the dancer. Not only of the killing, but of trying to form an oil cartel. He sends Falco to Corduba to get to the bottom of it all. Helena, of course, insists on coming along despite the fact that she’s due any week now. So off they go to Hispania, the land of olive oil, garum, and silver mines.
The trip is very educational for Falco. He learns firsthand how corruption works in the provinces. He meets the neighbors: the Rufii, who are nice folks, and the Quinctii who are clearly Up To Something. He has a run-in with a very slippery dancer, another one of Anacrites’ undercover spies, and a group of Roman adolescents at a raucous house party. In the end he has to confront both the bad memories of his time in the British silver mines from Silver Pigs and the overseer who caused those bad memories.
And yes, Helena has the baby at the end. It’s a girl.
*Story time! The Latin teacher I had freshman year of high school decided to make garum according to the ancient recipe for our end-of-year class party. He was the only one who was brave enough to try it. According to him it wasn’t good. This is what I think of whenever I think of garum.
The Eclectic Reviewer 