The world building is perfection, every aspect of the book drags you deeper into a roman-esk era. You can tell the author has a great appreciation for the time period, as if we put the story aside, that alone kept me interested.

Food was a huge part of this story, it was laced through all the interactions, in each place the character visited, and overall fascinating. It not only added to the era the author was engulfing us in, but gave us more insight to the characters. The characters had your typical roman names which all blended in my mind, but they had distinct personalities so I had no trouble keeping them apart.

Overall the story was long winded, and probably could have been shorter, but I personally think that was a nod to the time period as well. It's written as a memoir, not a fast pace mystery/thriller.

I also really enjoyed reading the notes in the back of the book about the authors research and how he adjusted things to fit his world. ( )

I spotted this and the sequel in an Amazon Countdown Deal and snagged them both - I like fantasy, historical fantasy, and Roman detective stories and it looked fun. Boy, was I glad I grabbed them both at the knockdown price!

There's a shout-out to Lindsey Davis and Steven Saylor, but this is a fantasy world and the Rome-variant has been (to my mind) well thought-out. Basically, magic in this world works and the author has done a good job of thinking through the societal changes. Interestingly, one of the strictures involved is the major stricture in the Rome-variant home-brew RPG I play occasionally although the other aspects are more like the Rome we all know from our schooldays.

An enjoyable read that has left me wanting more (although whether I get time this weekend to actually sit and read is debateable).

This book has everything: a hard-boiled, plodding, and roguish detective, an intricate mystery, surprising plot twists, a gallery of intriguing, shady and sometimes hilarious characters, touches of horror, even a climactic sword and sorcery battle.

The setting, a fantasy world based on Ancient Rome, is portrayed with erudite detail. Want to know how the ancients worked magic? No problem. Want to know how they manufactured fish sauce? That's in here too.

Mehr knows his Ancient World like a scholar, and tells stories like Raymond Chandler, Lindsey Davis, and Jim Butcher rolled into one.

Euge! (Google tells me that's Latin for 'Bravo.') ( )

Felix the Fox lives in a fantasy version of Rome called Egretia. It's basically ancient Rome with magic. Felix is an investigator who is called to find the background behind the death of a young man. His father is wealthy and wants to know the meaning of the tattoos on his body.
The world-building here is excellent, full of rich details of the world of Egretia and the surrounding cities and islands visited by Felix in pursuit of answers. That was one of my problems with this book; I have a pretty good background in Latin and ancient Rome, but at times I thought the details about the world overwhelmed the story. There's a lot of names and characters to keep track of and the characters are often referred to by different parts of their names or titles. I did find a glossary of terms at the end of the book, but a list of characters up front would have been nice to have. Readers of ebooks can find the list of people and terms in X-Ray, but again, I didn't think of that until the end of the book.
The mystery part of the story was okay, interesting in the execution as Felix tries different tactics to discover what happened to Caeso, the dead man. I didn't find the ending satisfactory; I wasn't sure where Felix came up with his conclusion, but I'm not sure it mattered that much.
There's a variety of interesting characters, all of whom are described well. The only one who isn't depicted is Felix himself. The book is told in first person, but I think a description of Felix could have been inserted in some way. I think he's middle-aged based on how he describes others as young or old, but aside from a few odd nuggets such as his short military and college careers, there's nothing about his appearance or background to flesh him out to the reader.
It's an interesting book and I would read more by this author. I give it 3 1/2 stars. ( )

Author's guest post at my blog:
https://bookfare.blogspot.com/2017/12/foodfic-please-welcome-assaph-mehr.html