Bruce Macbain

Roman Games Bruce Macbain

Publisher Marketing: Praise for Roman Games... A fantastic weave of fact with fiction in a brutally described Rome, rigid with hierarchy and fear...an excellent series. -Robert Fabbri, author of Vespasian: Rome's Executioner When the body of Sextus Verpa, a notorious senatorial informer and libertine, is found stabbed to death in his bedroom, suspicion falls on his household slaves-a potential death sentence for all. The cruel emperor, Domitian, orders Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus-known to history as Pliny the Younger-to investigate. However, the Ludi Romani (the Roman Games) have just begun, and for the next fifteen days the law courts are in recess. If Pliny can't identify the murderer in that time, Verpa's entire slave household will be burned alive in the arena. Pliny teams up with Martial, a starving author of bawdy verses and hanger-on to the city's glitterati, to unravel a plot that involves Jewish and Christian atheists, exotic Egyptian cultists, Rome's own pantheon of gods, and a missing horoscope that forecasts the emperor's death... Bruce Macbain has taught Greek and Roman history at Vanderbilt and Boston University. His special interest is religion in the Roman Empire. He lives with his wife in Massachusetts. Roman Games is first in his series set in ancient Rome. www.brucemacbain.com Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 06/28/2010 (EAN 9781590587775, Paperback) Library Journal 09/01/2010 pg. 94 (EAN 9781590587775, Paperback) Booklist 10/01/2010 pg. 35 (EAN 9781590587775, Paperback) Publishers Weekly 06/28/2010 (EAN 9781590587751, Hardcover) Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2010 (EAN 9781590587751, Hardcover) Library Journal 09/01/2010 pg. 94 (EAN 9781590587751, Hardcover) Booklist 10/01/2010 pg. 35 (EAN 9781590587751, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Macbain, Bruce Bruce Macbain was born in Chicago, Illinois. As a child, he squandered whole days reading science fiction and history. Greek and Roman history held a special fascination for him and this led eventually to acquiring a master's degree in Classical Studies and a doctorate in Ancient History. As an assistant professor of Classics, he taught courses in Late Antiquity and Roman religion--which is a particular interest of his--and published a few impenetrable scholarly monographs, which almost no one read. He eventually left academe and turned to teaching English as a second language, a field he was trained in while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Borneo in the 60s. Macbain has written a series of historical mysteries set in ancient Rome, (Roman Games, 2010, and The Bull Slayer, 2013) featuring the senatorial letter-writer Pliny the Younger as his protagonist, assisted by other literary figures such as the poet Martial and the biographer Suetonius. He also does a bit of book reviewing for the Historical Novels Review and Foreword magazine. Odin's Child is the first in his Viking series, The Odd Tangle-Hair Saga.