Food for the Fishes by David Wishart

From the Publisher

When Licinius Murena, wealthy fish-farm owner, is found dead, drowned in one of his eel tanks, not many tears are shed. Certainly not by Trebbio, who had just been booted out of his cottage by the landowner, and was heard drunkenly bad-mouthing him in public the day before Murena's death. Nor by his widow, a little stunner half Murena's age, who allegedly spent an inordinate amount of time "under the doctor." Nor by his daughter nor his farm manager. With friends like these, who needs enemies? Marcus Corvinus is the man to find out. With the help, of course, of his clever wife, Perilla--if she can spare the time from her newly acquired passion for gambling. As we follow the Byzantine thought-processes by which our hero solves the crime, we are entertained with enriching accounts of pisciculture and "Twelve Lines," the Roman precursor to backgammon.

The Times

Taut thrillers in which Ancient Rome springs to life.

Kirkus Reviews

Wishart's Roman nobleman risks his life as he probes the murder of an unpopular business magnate. Marcus Valerius Corvinus (Parthian Shot, 2004, etc.) is quickly bored with the idle decadence of Baiae, the Roman Riviera (think Vegas crossed with Sodom and Gomorrah), while vacationing there with his wife Perilla and his mother-so bored, in fact, that he almost agrees to befriend mom's dissolute boyfriend Priscus and sober him up. He's saved from this distasteful challenge by the killing of local fish-farm owner Licinius Murena, whom Corvinus, coincidentally, overheard being drunkenly reviled in a bar the night before. His abuser Trebbio, a longtime tenant of Murena, is the prime suspect in his murder. When he interviews the far-from-grieving family, however, Corvinus learns that there's no dearth of candidates. Murena had the distasteful habit of giving those around him unflattering nicknames, like Vagabond (his brother Nerva), Gadfly (his business partner Tattius) and Butterfly (his much-younger second wife Gellia). Household gossip targets family physician Diodotus (the Scowler), whose affair with Gellia is an open secret. Then suspicion shifts from Diodotus to Murena's daughter Penelope, Tattius' wife, who accuses her late father of having murdered her mother, and finally to Nerva, drowning in financial woes. Corvinus withstands multiple threats and a severe beating on his way to the surprising solution. Wishart continues to entertain with a droll first-person narrative and a solid puzzle.

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