443 BC, and, after decades of war with Persia, peace has finally come to Athens. The city is being rebuilt, and commerce and culture are flourishing. Aspiring playwright Philocles has come home to find a man with his throat cut slumped against his front gate. Is it just a robbery gone wrong? But, if so, why didn't the thieves take the dead man's valuables? With the play that could make his name just days away, he must find out who this man is, why he has been murdered - and why the corpse was left in his doorway. But Philocles soon realises he has been caught up in something far bigger, and there are those who don't want him looking any further . . .

“Historical crime writing that virtually reinvents the genre. Ancient Athens is recreated with a masterly touch . . . Philocles is the perfect protagonist.” —Financial Times 443 BC, and, after decades of war with Persia, peace has finally come to Athens. The city is being rebuilt, and commerce and culture are flourishing. Aspiring playwright Philocles has come home to find a man with his throat cut slumped against his front gate. Is it just a robbery gone wrong? But, if so, why didn't the thieves take the dead man’s valuables? With the play that could make his name just days away, he must find out who this man is, why he has been murdered—and why the corpse was left in his doorway. But Philocles soon realises he has been caught up in something far bigger, and there are those who don't want him looking any further . . . “Historical writing at its best. Riveting.” —Manda Scott, author of the Boudica series “Superb . . . A fabulous read.” —The Irish Times “If you like C. J. Sansom’s Tudor sleuth Matthew Shardlake, you’ll love this.” —James Wilde, author of Hereward and Pendragon “Great sense of place, terrific characters and a cracking plot.” —Joanne Harris, The New York Times–bestselling author of Chocolat “As vivid and lively as a Greek wedding--but with rather more blood!” —Val McDermid, author of the Kate Brannigan Mysteries “It's about time someone did for ancient Athens what Lindsey Davis’ Falco novels do for Ancient Rome.” —Jack Grimwood, author of Moskva “An enjoyable debut with a strong historical setting.” —The Times

A playwright turned amateur sleuth who is “the perfect protagonist” solves a murder at a celebration in this historical mystery set in ancient Greece (Financial Times). It’s festival time in Athens, and Philocles is looking forward to the holiday. Visitors are coming from across the Hellenic world for eight days of sporting competitions, musical contests, and sacred rites to honor Athena, the city’s patron goddess. Thousands will flock to the Pnyx to be enthralled by the dramatic three-day performance of Homer’s Iliad, an entertainment unique to the Great Panathenaea. Taking part is the highest honor and greatest challenge for an epic poet. Then one of the poets is brutally murdered. Is this random misfortune, an old score being settled, or is someone trying to sabotage the festival? The authorities want this cleared up quickly and quietly. Philocles finds himself on the trail of a killer once more . . . Longlisted for the 2021 CWA Sapere Books Historical Dagger Praise for the writing of J. M. Alvey: “Historical writing at its best. Riveting.” —Manda Scott, author of the Boudica series “Superb . . . A fabulous read.” —The Irish Times “If you like C J Sansom's Tudor sleuth Matthew Shardlake, you'll love this.” —James Wilde, author of Hereward and Pendragon “Great sense of place, terrific characters and a cracking plot.” —Joanne Harris, New York Times–bestselling author of Chocolat “As vivid and lively as a Greek wedding—but with rather more blood!” —Val McDermid, author of the Kate Brannigan Mysteries “It's about time someone did for ancient Athens what Lindsey Davis’ Falco novels do for Ancient Rome.” —Jack Grimwood, author of Moskva

Publisher Description

Austin, Texas, is often depicted as one of the past half century's great urban successstories--a place that has grown enormously through "creative class" strategies. In Shadows of a Sunbelt City, Eliot Tretter reinterprets this familiar story by exploring the racial and environmental underpinnings of the postindustrial knowledge economy.

In the second mystery of a series set in ancient Greece, “the perfect protagonist,” a playwright turned amateur sleuth, searches for a murderer (Financial Times). Popular playwright Philocles and his actors are hired to take his latest play to Corinth to promote goodwill between the two cities. But on arrival, their guide and fixer Eumelos drops dead—poisoned. Philocles is convinced someone is out to sabotage the play. To find out who—and why—he must first uncover the murderer. But in Corinth the ruling oligarchs seem more interested in commerce than justice. And with the city's religious brotherhoods pursuing their own vicious rivalries, asking the wrong questions could get an outsider like Philocles killed. Praise for the writing of J. M. Alvey: “Historical writing at its best. Riveting.” —Manda Scott, author of the Boudica series “Superb . . . A fabulous read.” —The Irish Times “If you like C J Sansom’s Tudor sleuth Matthew Shardlake, you’ll love this.” —James Wilde, author of Hereward and Pendragon “Great sense of place, terrific characters and a cracking plot.” —Joanne Harris, New York Times–bestselling author of Chocolat “As vivid and lively as a Greek wedding—but with rather more blood!” —Val McDermid, author of the Kate Brannigan Mysteries “It’s about time someone did for ancient Athens what Lindsey Davis’ Falco novels do for Ancient Rome.” —Jack Grimwood, author of Moskva “An enjoyable debut with a strong historical setting.” —The Times

Athanasios Souliotis-Nikolaidis (1878–1945) was a Greek military officer, undercover agent, author, and politician who in Greece today is not as well-known as he should be. Inasmuch as he is remembered at all today, Souliotis-Nikolaidis is associated with the much better-known Ion Dragoumis, with whom he was connected through bonds of friendship and ideology. In Athanasios Souliotis-Nikolaidis and Greek Irredentism: A Life in the Shadows, John Athanasios Mazisexamines the subject's contribution to Greece's irredentist activities of the early twentieth century, and answers some key questions: What were Souliotis-Nikolaidis's achievements as an undercover agent in Ottoman Macedonia? What was his behind-the-scenes role in the early elections of the Ottoman Empire, following the Young Turk Revolt? What was his relationship with important individuals and organizations of the Greek Diaspora? What was his contribution to the unique idea about the future of Greeks and Turks in a unified federal state? In this book, Mazis reveals that Souliotis-Nikolaidis, far from being a minor player in Greek irredentism, was an important actor whose many contributions deserve recognition.

'A rollicking romp through ancient Athens, with captivating characters and engrossing, suspense-filled turns . . . Gary Corby has not only made Greek history accessible – he's made it first-rate entertainment.' Kelli Stanley, award-winning author of Nox Dormienda and City of Dragons 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 . . . ' . . . a highly enjoyable, fast-paced murder mystery which also provides an informative and interesting picture of the political intrigue and day-to-day life in ancient Athens.' Canberra Times 'Classical Athens, a time of bustling rivalry, artistic genius and dramatic events, are all superbly captured in this exciting saga of flesh and blood characters who jostle and fight, love and hate as they approach the climax of murderous intrigue.' PC Doherty, bestselling author of The Ancient Roman Mysteries

Built in the fifth century b.c., the Parthenon has been venerated for more than two millennia as the West’s ultimate paragon of beauty and proportion. Since the Enlightenment, it has also come to represent our political ideals, the lavish temple to the goddess Athena serving as the model for our most hallowed civic architecture. But how much do the values of those who built the Parthenon truly correspond with our own? And apart from the significance with which we have invested it, what exactly did this marvel of human hands mean to those who made it? In this revolutionary book, Joan Breton Connelly challenges our most basic assumptions about the Parthenon and the ancient Athenians. Beginning with the natural environment and its rich mythic associations, she re-creates the development of the Acropolis—the Sacred Rock at the heart of the city-state—from its prehistoric origins to its Periklean glory days as a constellation of temples among which the Parthenon stood supreme. In particular, she probes the Parthenon’s legendary frieze: the 525-foot-long relief sculpture that originally encircled the upper reaches before it was partially destroyed by Venetian cannon fire (in the seventeenth century) and most of what remained was shipped off to Britain (in the nineteenth century) among the Elgin marbles. The frieze’s vast enigmatic procession—a dazzling pageant of cavalrymen and elders, musicians and maidens—has for more than two hundred years been thought to represent a scene of annual civic celebration in the birthplace of democracy. But thanks to a once-lost play by Euripides (the discovery of which, in the wrappings of a Hellenistic Egyptian mummy, is only one of this book’s intriguing adventures), Connelly has uncovered a long-buried meaning, a story of human sacrifice set during the city’s mythic founding. In a society startlingly preoccupied with cult ritual, this story was at the core of what it meant to be Athenian. Connelly reveals a world that beggars our popular notions of Athens as a city of staid philosophers, rationalists, and rhetoricians, a world in which our modern secular conception of democracy would have been simply incomprehensible. The Parthenon’s full significance has been obscured until now owing in no small part, Connelly argues, to the frieze’s dismemberment. And so her investigation concludes with a call to reunite the pieces, in order that what is perhaps the greatest single work of art surviving from antiquity may be viewed more nearly as its makers intended. Marshalling a breathtaking range of textual and visual evidence, full of fresh insights woven into a thrilling narrative that brings the distant past to life, The Parthenon Enigma is sure to become a landmark in our understanding of the civilization from which we claim cultural descent.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • “Altogether gripping, shocking, and brilliantly told, not just a tour de force in its stylistic range, but a great American novel, as powerful a reading experience as nearly any in our literature.”—Michael Dirda, The New York Review of Books Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man’s River, and Bone by Bone—Peter Matthiessen’s great American epic about Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson on the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century—were originally conceived as one vast, mysterious novel. Now, in this bold new rendering, Matthiessen has marvelously distilled a monumental work while deepening the insights and motivations of his characters with brilliant rewriting throughout. Praise for Shadow Country “Magnificent . . . breathtaking . . . Finally now we have [this three-part saga] welded like a bell, and with Watson’s song the last sound, all the elements fuse and resonate.”—Los Angeles Times “Peter Matthiessen has done great things with the Watson trilogy. It’s the story of our continent, both land and people, and his writing does every justice to the blood fury of his themes.”—Don DeLillo “The fiction of Peter Ma­­tthiessen is the reason a lot of people in my generation decided to be writers. No doubt about it. Shadow Country lives up to anyone’s highest expectations for great writing.” —Richard Ford “Shadow Country, Matthiessen’s distillation of the earlier Watson saga, represents his original vision. It is the quintessence of his lifelong concerns, and a great legacy.”—W. S. Merwin “[An] epic masterpiece . . . a great American novel.”—The Miami Herald