CLASSIC MURDER IN CLASSICAL TRAPPINGS

"How might a fanatic and nationalistic interest in athletics flourish even in a culture without corporate sponsorship? Bias, the ironic and unassuming narrator, is the minor priest for the Temple of Poseidon in the city-state of Priene, host of the Panionic Games, a forerunner to the Olympics, in 650 B.C. It's bad enough that during the opening ritual, the ox balks at being sacrificed to Poseidon (our opening ceremonies may be overblown, but at least animals are spared). It's even worse when, following the sacrifice, a ceremonial cup of wine poisons the hometown favorite, Tyrestes, while he's standing next to Bias. The Greeks believed that physical proximity to a dead man infected the living with a 'miasma' - the perfect excuse for the Priene magistrates to insist that hapless Bias, in the historical absence of any police, investigate the crime. Like the ox, Bias wishes this honor could have passed him by.... [Edwards'] wry perspective makes [his] debut appealing."

• KIRKUS REVIEWS