| 商家名称 |
信用等级 |
购买信息 |
订购本书 |
|
|
 |
The Water Thief |
 |
|
|
The Water Thief |
|
基本信息·出版社：Minotaur Books
·页码：368 页
·出版日期：2007年02月
·ISBN：0312353901
·International Standard Book Number：0312353901
·条形码：9780312353902
·EAN：9780312353902
·版本：1st
·装帧：精装
·正文语种：英语
·丛书名：Aelius Spartianus Mysteries
内容简介 In 304 c.e. Aelius Spartianus, officer and historian at the court of Diocletian in Dalmatia, is writing the biographies of past Roman rulers, including Hadrian, who has been dead for nearly 175 years. Aelius’s particular charge is to investigate the unsolved mystery of the drowning death in the Nile of Hadrian’s favorite, young Antinous.
Soon his duty turns twofold: the hunt for Antinous’s grave, supposed to conceal proof of a conspiracy against Rome, and the murder of a wealthy army supplier and his servant. The mystery thickens as deaths multiply; scholarly work turns into a race against time and into a confrontation with risk, lies, and half-truths at the hands of priests, authorities, and former colleagues. While the trials against Christians (later known as the Great Persecution) inflame Egypt, Aelius gathers clues in odd places until his road leads inescapably to Rome.
Joined in his search by a blind retired soldier who is well experienced in counterespionage, Aelius scavenges for evidence in a world capital in decline. From Rome his breathless trail takes him to Hadrian’s country estate, which is now acres and acres of monumental ruins in the wilderness. In the haunted stillness of roofless halls and overgrown gardens, Aelius deciphers the great plan of the villa, an astronomical chart confirming how the danger against Rome is clear and imminent. But who is behind it all? How deadly close is danger? In order to save the state and himself, Aelius must solve not only the puzzle of Antinous’s drowning, but also the murders that have marred his path.
Internationally renowned and critically acclaimed author Ben Pastor brings her thematic skill to bear in this new historical mystery. International Praise for the Works of Ben Pastor
“History blends with absolute perfection to personal story, and the novel is like an orchestral score, with pages of rare evocative power. It is narrative one reads with admiration and even devotion.”
---La Stampa Turrolibri on
Kaputt Mundi “The mystery plot develops within a perfectly wrought historical milieu. . . . A novel of great emotional impact.”
---Il Giorno on
The Horseman’s Song “Along with Margaret Doody and Elizabeth George, Ben Pastor is considered one of the strongest female voices of today’s mystery writing. Her investigative tales show a breathless rhythm, a perfect blend of action thriller and authorial narrative.”
---La Repubblica on
The Dead in the Square “Pastor’s plot is well crafted, her prose sharp.”
---Publishers Weekly on
LumenFrom the Inside Flap In 304 c.e. Aelius Spartianus, officer and historian at the court of Diocletian in Dalmatia, is writing the biographies of past Roman rulers, including Hadrian, who has been dead for nearly 175 years. Aelius’s particular charge is to investigate the unsolved mystery of the drowning death in the Nile of Hadrian’s favorite, young Antinous.
Soon his duty turns twofold: the hunt for Antinous’s grave, supposed to conceal proof of a conspiracy against Rome, and the murder of a wealthy army supplier and his servant. The mystery thickens as deaths multiply; scholarly work turns into a race against time and into a confrontation with risk, lies, and half-truths at the hands of priests, authorities, and former colleagues. While the trials against Christians (later known as the Great Persecution) inflame Egypt, Aelius gathers clues in odd places until his road leads inescapably to Rome.
Joined in his search by a blind retired soldier who is well experienced in counterespionage, Aelius scavenges for evidence in a world capital in decline. From Rome his breathless trail takes him to Hadrian’s country estate, which is now acres and acres of monumental ruins in the wilderness. In the haunted stillness of roofless halls and overgrown gardens, Aelius deciphers the great plan of the villa, an astronomical chart confirming how the danger against Rome is clear and imminent. But who is behind it all? How deadly close is danger? In order to save the state and himself, Aelius must solve not only the puzzle of Antinous’s drowning, but also the murders that have marred his path.
Internationally renowned and critically acclaimed author Ben Pastor brings her thematic skill to bear in this new historical mystery. International Praise for the Works of Ben Pastor
“History blends with absolute perfection to personal story, and the novel is like an orchestral score, with pages of rare evocative power. It is narrative one reads with admiration and even devotion.”
---La Stampa Turrolibri on
Kaputt Mundi “The mystery plot develops within a perfectly wrought historical milieu. . . . A novel of great emotional impact.”
---Il Giorno on
The Horseman’s Song “Along with Margaret Doody and Elizabeth George, Ben Pastor is considered one of the strongest female voices of today’s mystery writing. Her investigative tales show a breathless rhythm, a perfect blend of action thriller and authorial narrative.”
---La Repubblica on
The Dead in the Square “Pastor’s plot is well crafted, her prose sharp.”
---Publishers Weekly on
Lumen 作者简介 Ben Pastor was born in Rome, but her career as a college teacher and writer requires that she divide her time between the United States and Italy, where she is now doing research. Author of the internationally acclaimed Martin Bora war mysteries, she begins with Aelius Spartianus a new series of thrilling tales. In addition to the United States, her novels are published in Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
专业书评 From Publishers WeeklyIn A.D. 304, the historian Aelius Spartianus steps into a conspiracy spanning centuries in Pastor's satisfyingly convoluted historical, which ranges from Egypt to the villas and back alleys of imperial Rome. Researching a biography of the deified Hadrian, Aelius is curious about the drowning death of Antinous, the emperor's favored male consort. The historian learns of a letter from Hadrian, which hints at a plot against the empire, that may be interred with the youth in an unknown grave. A source soon suffers Antinous's watery fate in the Nile, and attempts on Aelius's life quicken. Pastor (
Liar Moon) bases her characters, even Aelius, on historical personages and weaves strong threads of contemporary gay culture, Christian suppression and the Jewish revolt into an elaborately detailed canvas. As the search for Antinous's grave narrows, red herrings abound. The shadowy conspiracy against Rome ought to resonate powerfully with readers today.
(Mar.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From BooklistPastor specializes in historical mysteries with a military-occupation background. Her two most recent novels,
Lumen (1999) and
Liar Moon (2001), were set in Nazi-occupied Poland and Nazi-occupied Italy, respectively. Now, she reaches way back in history, all the way to AD 304, to provinces occupied by Roman garrisons in the time of the emperor Diocletian. Pastor's hero, Aelius Spartianus, is a former Roman soldier and current historian to Diocletian. The emperor summons Aelius to a garrison in Dalmatia--Pastor notes how barbers and "spotted dogs" are everywhere in Dalmatia: the first because the emperor abhors curls and bangs; the latter because he loves the intelligent dogs. From Dalmatia, Aelius is sent to Egypt to unearth any evidence pointing to the cause of the drowning death of the emperor Hadrian's male favorite. This being the ancient Roman Empire, past murder intersects with fresh murder and intrigues. Although the plot meanders, readers will be held by accounts of garrison and court life and by details about the crackdown on Christians.
Connie FletcherCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved 文摘 Chapter One Aspalatum, Dalmatia, 15 May (Ides), Monday, a.d. 304 The pounding of mattocks and mallets followed Aelius Spartianus as he entered the compound, so much like a military camp that he wondered whether all of them, from the emperor to the last recruit, were so shaped by their duties as to think exclusively in those terms. The foursquare shape, secure and solid, to be multiturreted in the end no doubt, enclosed him with the old safety that held in without dwarfing, although its perimeter must be a mile and half at least. At once the impeccable seaside sky was locked into a rectangle of sun-filled brightness above, run by swallows and quarrelsome gulls. “Your credentials, Commander.” A noncommissioned officer held out his hand, and when Aelius obliged, he saluted and let him pass. Against the massive perimeter walls, some of the apartments in the imperial compound had been built already, and from what it seemed, a series of arched courtyards would dissect the floor plan soon. Freshly hewn limestone cornices, pedestals, and steps lay orderly according to their kind, numbered and ready to be fitted. “Commander, may I see your credentials?” Same uniform, another face, another proffered hand. “Here.” Aelius was curious to see that every square piece of land not specifically taken up by the workers or their tools, was carefully tended and watered, and even without much familiarity with gardening, he could tell it was cabbage that grew in neat, pale green rows. “Soldier, who put these here?” “His Divinity.” “The cabbage, I mean.” “His Divinity planted it.” Having presented his credentials to a third guardsman, Aelius walked past the vegetables and between heaps of groun
……
