A prequel to the best-selling Roma Sub Rosa series traces 18-year-old Gordianus's journey to the Seven Wonders of the World, each of which pose a mystery that challenges his budding powers of deduction and the tenacity of celebrated poet Antipater of Sidon, who fakes his death to accompany young Gordianus.

Rome, 80 B.C. and Cicero is about to conduct his first important case, the defense of well-heeled farmer Sextus Roscius against the charge of killing his hated father. Gordianus the finder, hired by Cicero to dig up evidence, soon learns why the elder Roscius was lured to his death.

"In 88 B.C. it seems as if all the world is at war. From Rome to Greece and to Egypt itself, most of civilization is on the verge of war. The young Gordianus--a born-and-raised Roman citizen--is living in Alexandria, making ends meet by plying his trade of solving puzzles and finding things out for pay. He whiles away his time with his slave Bethesda, waiting for the world to regain its sanity. But on the day Gordianus turns twenty-two, Bethesda is...

"On a chill January evening in 56 B.C., two strange visitors to Rome -- an Egyptian ambassador and a eunuch priest -- seek out Gordianus the Finder whose specialty is solving murders. But the ambassador, a philosopher named Dio, has come to ask for something Gordianus cannot give -- help in staying alive. Before the night is out, he will be murdered. Now Gordianus begins his most dangerous case. Hired to investigate Dio's death by a beautiful woman...

In 48 B.C., civil war rages across the Roman world. While Caesar and Pompey fight on distant battlefields, the powerful women left behind in Rome spin their own webs of intrigue and betrayal. When the beautiful young Cassandra staggers across the Roman Forum and dies in the arms of Gordianus the Finder, he becomes obsessed with finding her killer. Like her Trojan namesake, Cassandra was a seeress.To hear her prophecies, many paid handsomely. To silence...

South of Rome on the Gulf of Puteoli stands the splendid villa of Marcus Crassus, Rome's wealthiest citizen. When the estate overseer is murdered, Crassus concludes that the deed was done by two missing slaves, who have probably run off to join the Spartacan Slave Revolt. Unless they are found within three days, Crassus vows to massacre his remaining ninety-nine slaves. To Gordianus the Finder falls the fateful task of resolving this riddle from Hades....

In Ancient Rome, sleuth Gordianus the Finder investigates the death by garroting of Pompey's cousin. The probe plays out amid political turmoil as Julius Caesar invades from Gaul, starting a civil war.

Nine crime stories featuring Gordianus the Finder, a detective in ancient Rome who marries his slave. Part mystery, part a social history of the period from the end of Sulla's dictatorship to the Spartacan slave revolt.