The first book of what seems to be intended as a series, THE PERICLES COMMISSION starts out with potential. I can't remember any other book of this style that I've read that combines series, with a real sense of humour. It's making Ancient Athens seem like a real place.
From the Blurb:
Athens, 461BC. A dead man falls from the sky, landing at the feet of a surprised Nicolaos.
It doesn't normally rain corpses. This one is the politician Ephialtes, who only days before had turned Athens into a democracy.
Rising young statesman Pericles commissions Nicolaos to find the assassin. Nico walks the mean streets of Classical Athens in search of a killer, but what's really on his mind is how to get closer - much closer - to Diotima, an intelligent and annoyingly virgin priestess, and how to shake off his irritating twelve year old brother, Socrates . . .
Opening Lines:
A dead man fell from the sky, landing at my feet with a thud. I stopped and stood there like a fool, astonished to see him laying where I was about to step.
Athens, 461BC. A dead man falls from the sky, landing at the feet of a surprised Nicolaos.
It doesn't normally rain corpses. This one is the politician Ephialtes, who only days before had turned Athens into a democracy.
Rising young statesman Pericles commissions Nicolaos to find the assassin. Nico walks the mean streets of Classical Athens in search of a killer, but what's really on his mind is how to get closer - much closer - to Diotima, an intelligent and annoyingly virgin priestess, and how to shake off his irritating twelve year old brother, Socrates . . .