Review of Going Back by David Wishart, independently published 2018

Corvinus, unwillingly attending an imperial dinner, consoles himself with the reflection that at least the current emperor is a bit saner than the last one…

"Claudius was a different kettle of fish altogether; at least you could be certain that when you turned up in your glad-rags with your party slippers under your arm, he wouldn’t be got up like a brothel tart or Jupiter God Almighty complete with gold-wire beard and matching toy thunderbolt; our Gaius had had style, sure, no argument, but you can take that sort of thing too far. With Claudius, the worst you could expect was a lecture on Etruscan marriage customs and a detailed explanation of why the alphabet could really, really do with a few extra letters."

The trouble is, of course, that Claudius wants another favour.  His mother-in-law is pestering him to find out who murdered the husband of an old friend of hers – in Carthage. Cue another journey to the outlying parts of the empire for Corvinus and family, with Perilla delighted at the prospect of new monuments to explore and Bathyllus resigned to another sea crossing.

Corvinus has the usual problems – plenty of suspects, since the victim, wealthy landowner and businessman Cestius, was not popular even within his own family, and, the bane of all investigations, the fact that most people have something to hide, and will lie accordingly; it’s just that the something in question may not be murder. In addition, an apparently accidental death and an apparently completely unrelated street murder worry Corvinus, who has a hunch they are somehow relevant. Nobody shares his view, not even Perilla, and she and Corvinus are also at odds over two of his suspects, a couple to whom she’s taken a great liking.

So basically the mixture as before, albeit in a fresh setting, with Corvinus getting up people’s noses, trying to avoid being beaten up and trying even harder to avoid the local speciality, date wine, which he’s been reliably informed is even worse than German beer. He also has to attend a  formal dinner party hosted by the local governor, none other than our old acquaintance Sulpicius Galba, which proves a more fraught occasion than the one with Claudius… Corvinus is convinced that even the guest list has been compiled with a view to ensuring he never comes again:

"There was Lutatius the banker with the cleft palate and his wife Quadratilla, sixty if she was a day, dressed and made up like a thirty year old, who had a laugh like a marble-saw: Rupilius, owner of the biggest undertaker’s business in the city, who looked the part and whose hobby was undertaking, plus his acid-tongued harpy of a wife Lautilla, whose hobby seemed to be slagging friends, acquaintances and total strangers off at every opportunity, and finally a guy I can’t remember the name of who sat through the whole meal without saying a word to anybody."

The plight of slaves in the empire gives him pause for thought again, as does the difference between law and justice, and we learn (painlessly via Perilla) some fascinating facts about the region’s history and its relationship with Rome. My one criticism would be that it seems a shame to take Meton all that way and then give him so little to do in the book – Bathyllus, though, proves to have a vital contribution to make to solving the mystery, as does an ill-behaved pet monkey.

I'm adding a couple of reviews of older Wishart books because I discovered some folk were no longer becoming aware of new ones now that he is self-publishing.  To find more, and keep up to date with him, go to his website at https://www.david-wishart.co.uk/