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The I-CLAUDIUS.COM booklist

Would you like to talk about books? I have set up a mailing list for booklovers. Here we can send reviews and discuss and ask questions about current readings.

Welcome to my online reading list and bookstore in association with Amazon.com. This is the shameless commercial section of my site, but hopefully it will be of some service to you. I have read and rated all books on these pages, so if I recommend a book I'm not talking from the back end of my toga. The descriptions are reproduced from the amazon website with occasional notes added by me. If you do not see anything you like you may search for a title with the Amazon link on the left.

Each book in the list has an associated banner which links with Amazon.com for more information about the book and for purchase. I've been dealing with Amazon for years: It is secure, reliable and quick. Though nothing can compare with handling a book before you buy it, this is the next best thing if going to the bookstore isn't an option, or if you want to take advantage of some great deals.

Supporting Pages

Series Page: In many cases an author will have a series featuring the same characters. This is usually, but not necessarily limited to, ancient Rome detectives. I am collecting those authors and their series on a separate page here.

The Reading List : In January of 2005 I began to catalog the books that I read with a short commentary and a rating. This may prove useful if you need a quick recommendation from a notorious bookworm. Enjoy.

Coming soon!: The backlist section will have a breakdown of past featured books and titles I have read which may be of interest.

One more quick note: I have noticed that some versions of Norton Firewall actually cancel the book links on the left. I don't know why that is; however, if you enter the information about the book in the search box above, you will go to the book that you want on Amazon.

Brimstone
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Suspense

Fans of cerebral action adventure novels know that, outside of Michael Crichton, no one delivers the goods like the veteran writing team of Preston and Child ( Relic ; Still Life with Crows ; etc.). As if invigorated by their recent solo efforts (Child: Utopia , etc.; Preston: The Codex , etc.), the two now deliver their best novel ever, an extravagant tale of international intrigue. Publisher's Weekly

All the Flowers are Dying
Lawrence Block
Mystery

In his sixteenth Matthew Scudder novel, All the Flowers Are Dying , New York Times best selling author Lawrence Block takes the award-winning series to a new level of suspense and a new depth of characterization. Building on the critical and commercial success of Hope to Die , Block puts Scudder -- and the reader -- at the very edge of the abyss. Rated 5 Scrolls

The River God's Vengeance
SPQR VIII
John Maddox Roberts

He would rise up as savior of the State, but Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger already has a lot on his mind. In the year of his aedileship, Decius is expected to stage elaborate and expensive games out of his own pocket. Along with his duties of pleasing the crowds with the feats of gladiators and wild beasts, are the more practical, and commonly neglected, ones of maintaining the city and its laws. It is these more mundane duties that call him to the scene of a recently built and more recently collapsed tenement building. Determined to punish the greedy parties who used cheap materials and caused the deaths of hundreds, Decius sets out to exact justice. It is easier said than done, especially when bodies and evidence go missing, and his family pressures him to cease the investigation. As he seeks out the politicians, philosophers, and tradesmen of the day, it becomes clear that the collapse of the building was deliberate, and Decius could be going after some of the most powerful men in Rome.