"The King's Gambit"

The King's Gambit [SPQR I] (John Roberts)

Apparently the ancient Roman murder mystery is a fairly popular little sub-genre; there's like nine books in this series alone. Going into this first one, I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, but it turned out to be a pleasant surprise - I think what leapt out at me most is how historically accurate the book is. This works quite well, although it does rob the book of a little suspense if you know much about Roman history (and I'd assume that's why you'd be reading the book in the first place), as well as an exciting climax. Still, I feel these are good tradeoffs for the book's believeability and accuracy, not to mention the "A hah!" moment when what you know is going to happen goes down. Honestly, I don't know if you'd get more reading this if you don't know anything about ancient Rome so you're completely surprised, or if you'd be better off with those moments where you know what's going to happen, but I enjoyed it either way.

Grade: B