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The Water Thief (Aelius Spartianus Mysteries)
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Product Description
Soon his duty turns twofold: the hunt for Antinous’s grave, supposed to conceal proof of a conspiracy against Rome, and the murder of a wealthy army supplier and his servant. The mystery thickens as deaths multiply; scholarly work turns into a race against time and into a confrontation with risk, lies, and half-truths at the hands of priests, authorities, and former colleagues. While the trials against Christians (later known as the Great Persecution) inflame Egypt, Aelius gathers clues in odd places until his road leads inescapably to Rome.
Joined in his search by a blind retired soldier who is well experienced in counterespionage, Aelius scavenges for evidence in a world capital in decline. From Rome his breathless trail takes him to Hadrian’s country estate, which is now acres and acres of monumental ruins in the wilderness. In the haunted stillness of roofless halls and overgrown gardens, Aelius deciphers the great plan of the villa, an astronomical chart confirming how the danger against Rome is clear and imminent. But who is behind it all? How deadly close is danger? In order to save the state and himself, Aelius must solve not only the puzzle of Antinous’s drowning, but also the murders that have marred his path.
Internationally renowned and critically acclaimed author Ben Pastor brings her thematic skill to bear in this new historical mystery.
“History blends with absolute perfection to personal story, and the novel is like an orchestral score, with pages of rare evocative power. It is narrative one reads with admiration and even devotion.”
---La Stampa Turrolibri on Kaputt Mundi
“The mystery plot develops within a perfectly wrought historical milieu. . . . A novel of great emotional impact.”
---Il Giorno on The Horseman’s Song
“Along with Margaret Doody and Elizabeth George, Ben Pastor is considered one of the strongest female voices of today’s mystery writing. Her investigative tales show a breathless rhythm, a perfect blend of action thriller and authorial narrative.”
---La Repubblica on The Dead in the Square
“Pastor’s plot is well crafted, her prose sharp.”
---Publishers Weekly on Lumen
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #573093 in Books
- Published on: 2007-02-06
- Released on: 2007-02-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 368 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In A.D. 304, the historian Aelius Spartianus steps into a conspiracy spanning centuries in Pastor's satisfyingly convoluted historical, which ranges from Egypt to the villas and back alleys of imperial Rome. Researching a biography of the deified Hadrian, Aelius is curious about the drowning death of Antinous, the emperor's favored male consort. The historian learns of a letter from Hadrian, which hints at a plot against the empire, that may be interred with the youth in an unknown grave. A source soon suffers Antinous's watery fate in the Nile, and attempts on Aelius's life quicken. Pastor (Liar Moon) bases her characters, even Aelius, on historical personages and weaves strong threads of contemporary gay culture, Christian suppression and the Jewish revolt into an elaborately detailed canvas. As the search for Antinous's grave narrows, red herrings abound. The shadowy conspiracy against Rome ought to resonate powerfully with readers today. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Pastor specializes in historical mysteries with a military-occupation background. Her two most recent novels, Lumen (1999) and Liar Moon (2001), were set in Nazi-occupied Poland and Nazi-occupied Italy, respectively. Now, she reaches way back in history, all the way to AD 304, to provinces occupied by Roman garrisons in the time of the emperor Diocletian. Pastor's hero, Aelius Spartianus, is a former Roman soldier and current historian to Diocletian. The emperor summons Aelius to a garrison in Dalmatia--Pastor notes how barbers and "spotted dogs" are everywhere in Dalmatia: the first because the emperor abhors curls and bangs; the latter because he loves the intelligent dogs. From Dalmatia, Aelius is sent to Egypt to unearth any evidence pointing to the cause of the drowning death of the emperor Hadrian's male favorite. This being the ancient Roman Empire, past murder intersects with fresh murder and intrigues. Although the plot meanders, readers will be held by accounts of garrison and court life and by details about the crackdown on Christians. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
From the Inside Flap
Soon his duty turns twofold: the hunt for Antinous’s grave, supposed to conceal proof of a conspiracy against Rome, and the murder of a wealthy army supplier and his servant. The mystery thickens as deaths multiply; scholarly work turns into a race against time and into a confrontation with risk, lies, and half-truths at the hands of priests, authorities, and former colleagues. While the trials against Christians (later known as the Great Persecution) inflame Egypt, Aelius gathers clues in odd places until his road leads inescapably to Rome.
Joined in his search by a blind retired soldier who is well experienced in counterespionage, Aelius scavenges for evidence in a world capital in decline. From Rome his breathless trail takes him to Hadrian’s country estate, which is now acres and acres of monumental ruins in the wilderness. In the haunted stillness of roofless halls and overgrown gardens, Aelius deciphers the great plan of the villa, an astronomical chart confirming how the danger against Rome is clear and imminent. But who is behind it all? How deadly close is danger? In order to save the state and himself, Aelius must solve not only the puzzle of Antinous’s drowning, but also the murders that have marred his path.
Internationally renowned and critically acclaimed author Ben Pastor brings her thematic skill to bear in this new historical mystery.
“History blends with absolute perfection to personal story, and the novel is like an orchestral score, with pages of rare evocative power. It is narrative one reads with admiration and even devotion.”
---La Stampa Turrolibri on Kaputt Mundi
“The mystery plot develops within a perfectly wrought historical milieu. . . . A novel of great emotional impact.”
---Il Giorno on The Horseman’s Song
“Along with Margaret Doody and Elizabeth George, Ben Pastor is considered one of the strongest female voices of today’s mystery writing. Her investigative tales show a breathless rhythm, a perfect blend of action thriller and authorial narrative.”
---La Repubblica on The Dead in the Square
“Pastor’s plot is well crafted, her prose sharp.”
---Publishers Weekly on Lumen
Customer Reviews
Preposterous
The Water Thief is a tale very loosely related to the mystery surrounding the death of the Emperor Hadrian's young favorite, Antinou, who drowned in the Nile during Hadrian's visit to Egypt.
The author, an Italian woman named Ben Pastor, bases her story on the highly unlikely premise that several centuries after Hadrian the Emperor Diocletian, suspecting a conspiracy still in existence, orders a Roman army officer to investigate Antinou's death. The novel revolves around and in part is told by the Roman officer, who makes occasional and slightly disconcerting use of modern American slang.
The novel never gets around to providing a satisfactory explanation of Antinou's death, but the Roman eventually discovers a preposterous conspiracy. By that time the author has refashioned her story into what amounts to an old-fashioned romance in which the right people are eliminated and love triumphs.
Unenlightenment
I was very excited to read this book considering I'm usually a big fan of ancient Rome, and Hadrian in particular. Imagine my disappointment when about half way into it I realized that I couldn't care less about either the main character ("my one issue is that I'm too smart for the army" - yawn) or the "conspiracy" (a shady organization is behind EVERYTHING - oh my!) that he's trying to unearth (uh... literally). Somehow along the way, poor Antinous and his grave got involved. Perhaps because I know that his real grave was never found and that everything here is pure conjecture, I felt hardly any motivation to keep on digging (buh-dum-bum). Throw in a rather lackluster "romance" (a prostitute with a heart of gold - very original!) and receive the overall meh-factor. I'm giving it three stars because Ben Pastor obviously did her research and it's still fun to imagine how things maybe... possibly... kind of.... could have been.
Enjoyable Historic Fiction
"The Water Thief" is both a good mystery yarn and a highly literate piece of historic fiction. The author has done a commendable job of research on the later period of the Roman Empire and much of the book examines the forces at work that eventually pulled that sprawling collection of territories and subject kingdoms apart. The story's protagonist, Aelius Spartianus, is a senior army officer, historian and agent of the emperor, Diocletian. Dispatched to solve a century-old murder involving one of Diocletian's most successful precedessors, Hadrian, Aelius Spartianus' investigation stirs up a new series of killings and ultimately brings to light a massive conspriacy that threatens to destroy the authority of the Empire. Author Ben Pastor creates some beautiful prose in this story, which though at times a little dense or meandering, is effective at carrying the story line along and ultimately, entirely satisfying. The book's cover notes suggest that "The Water Thief" is the beginning of a new series. Let's hope so.
