Thu 3 Dec 2015
Reviewed by Mike Tooney: MARILYN TODD – Swords, Sandals and Sirens.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[2] Comments
MARILYN TODD – Swords, Sandals and Sirens. Crippen & Landru Publishers, softcover, November 2015.
If you don’t always like your mysteries with contemporary settings, there are a few authors who can oblige by taking the reader centuries into the past to places that once teemed with people but are now crumbling jumbles of detritus; one of the best at this approach is Marilyn Todd.
Rather than trying to ape the stilted style of speech that we’ve come to expect from badly-dubbed sword-and-sandal movies, Todd modernizes the proceedings in such a way as to keep her characters from sounding like a dress rehearsal for a high school production of Julius Caesar while preserving the salient attributes of the ancient cultures she places us in. The result makes for smoother reading and assists us in concentrating more on the mystery plot.
Swords, Sandals and Sirens collects eleven of Todd’s historical mysteries, with settings in either ancient Greece (3 stories) or, most often, Rome in the time of Augustus Caesar (7 stories, with one other set earlier, during Julius Caesar’s dalliance with the Queen of the Nile). The Greek stories feature several characters: the wholly mythical Echo, as well as two more down-to-earth individuals, the Delphic Oracle and Iliona, a high priestess who has appeared in at least three novels.
The remaining Roman stories focus on Claudia Seferius, the always cash-strapped widow of a wine merchant — and a real looker. Thanks to the prevailing oppressive tax structure and the repressive patriarchal culture of the times, Claudia is often forced to skirt the law, always with the prospect of exile from Rome lurking in the back of her mind—but it seems that every time she’s about to make a big score that will get her out of the red, somebody gets murdered.
When that happens, the law’s long arm soon appears, sometimes like a wraith from the shadows, in the person of Marcus Cornelius Orbilio, a patrician member of the Secret Police whose ambition for promotion would make squashing a minor scofflaw like Claudia the work of but a moment. Yet when these two get together to solve a murder, for some reason Marcus overlooks his duty and never does nab her. Maybe it’s his respect for her smarts, maybe it’s her regard for his prowess, maybe it’s his concern for her welfare, maybe it’s her respect for his position — and maybe, just maybe, it’s because they’re in love.
December 3rd, 2015 at 4:19 pm
Since Robert Graves I CLAUDIUS and CLAUDIUS THE GOD, most historical novelist have used colloquial English in dealing with the ancient world. Once in a while someone will attempt to reproduce Shakesperian English, or the some later periods ranging from 17th century pirates to 19th century pioneers, but by a large the movement has been towards using the modern voice in historical fiction since Graves pioneered the idea.
Even Edgar Rice Burroughs used the modern voice in his Roman novel I BARBARIAN.
These sound like fun, and I like the idea of using a woman protagonist in Roman society where the ideal Roman woman was supposed to be silent and above reproach publically (Caesar’s wife). It adds extra tension and a bit of sex appeal.
December 3rd, 2015 at 10:51 pm
The girl in the cover art looks awfully familiar. I think she looks like an actress I’ve seen recently on TV, but it hasn’t come to me which series it might be.