It’s 36 CE. The city of Alexandria is a center of Roman commerce—and a sinful playground for the pleasure-seeking rich and powerful.
For wealthy merchant Tarquitius Aculeo, however, Alexandria has become a living hell. Ruined by a string of mysterious investment disasters, abandoned by friends and family, Aculeo is desperate to recover his wealth and status.
But his search for the reasons behind his downfall draws him into a web of violence.
A common slave is found murdered in the magnificent temple of the god Serapis. Days later, the brutalized body of a high-priced hetaira is discovered floating in a canal, after an evening entertaining the city’s elite. The grim truth soon becomes clear: A ruthless killer is moving among Alexandria’s aristocrats, commercial titans, and philosophers.
And ominous clues begin to connect those murders to Aculeo’s own personal quest.
Aided by an Egyptian mortuary attendant, a brilliant philosopher, a lovely hetaira, and his last remaining friends, Aculeo must unmask and stop a deadly murderer if he is ever to reclaim the life he has lost.
But first, he must survive…