The House of the Vestals

If you have read some of his books, you will know of his friend Claudius, Catilina's adventure in the house of vestals, the Alexandrian mob after the killer of a cat, etc. Well, here you have the stories, some of when Gordianus was a young man.

I very much like his writing, and the mistery is always, and i do mean always, kept to the end. The reason i don't give it 5 stars, is because i cant place this book over any of his other novels. Impossible. It is after all, only of short stories, no matter how good they are.


short whodunit stories from a writer of historical novels   August 8, 1998
 2 out of 3 found this review helpful

Roaming the Internet a couple of months ago I stumbled across "The House of the Vestals", a new title by Steven Saylor. Ordering the book via Amazon.com was a new experience and proved to be both simple and efficient. During my holidays in Italy - where else - I found the time to read this collection of short stories that provides us with some answers as to how Gordianus, the main character in Saylor's "Roma Sub Rosa" sequel, got his nickname "the Finder". "Roma Sub Rosa" is set in the period in Western history wherein ancient Rome was getting ready to change its government from a tormented republic to an long-lasting empire. Saylor has a broad knowledge of the era and has the ability to remodel hints in history, mostly concerning events on the byways of time, to breath-taking mysteries. Saylor's books are interesting in that they provide the reader with more than just a whodunit plot. They alo give a lot of insight in both the po! litics and everyday life in Rome around 50 B.C. Saylor evidently needs all the pages of a novel to elaborate both a gripping plot and the historical setting. He isn't able to do this within the confines of a short story. Sure, it's all there: the humor, sex and violence that the cover promises. But each plot of "House of the Vestals" is so thin that it left me with a feeling of "is that all there is?". Still, I am looking forward to his next novel.