CORRUPTION, BETRAYAL, MURDER: games the Romans play best.

A turbulent frontier province, rotten with corruption and seething with hatred of Rome – a barbarian god whose devotees may include a murderer – a clever and unscrupulous faith healer who knows everyone's secrets – a boy who struggles toward manhood though stricken with the Sacred Disease: these are the elements in a mystery that Pliny, newly appointed governor of Bithynia, confronts when a high Roman official is found murdered on a desolate hillside, miles from the capital.