House Of Death: A Mystery Of Alexander The Great [Hardcover]

First of all, I didn't realize this was a detective story.
It's about the mysterious murders that take place one after another in Alexander's camp, and a doctor called Telamon was summoned to join the camp to investigate the murder cases. Throughout the book, the king stays behind the scene, acting silly and some times as a nervous victim, until in the end the author reveals that he was the one who knew every thing.

The story moves very slow, with lots of unnecessary conversations (not dialogues), which the author seemed to have relied on to tell the whole story.
It starts with Prologue I, the scene in which Memnon and Darius go on with what seems to me a total waste-of-time conversation to talk about how to deal with this guy Alexander. But there is no significant progress, despite such a long conversation.
In Prologue II, Alexander's mother Olympias summons Telamon to her presence, and the two rambles on with a complete beat-around-the-bush conversation. The point and purpose of this meeting are not clear, it could have been done with a single intense narrative paragraph, instead of long, boring conversation.
And in the Prologue III, the author makes a huge mistake in giving a hint who the murderer is.
So the reader opens the first chapter with an idea of who the killer is.

Alexander wants to move on, but the sacrificial bulls indicate he should wait. Ptolemy, in this book an Alexander's rival, tries to manipulate the sacrificial bulls to control Alexander's decisions and plans, because he thought he was better than Alexander. More people get killed, as they hang around in the same place, and Telamon is baffled as ever. Nothing significant happens as far as the investigations go, for a long long long time, and it is a mystery how the pages filled up.
There is a battle scene, but some more unrealistic things happen at the battle field. I really can't tell the details, because it will ruin it for you.

In the very end, Telamon finally realizes who the killer is, and goes to Alexander, but the king already knew, he knew all along, and sends him to take care of the murderer.

The premise of the story is unclear, which makes the story sort of scattered, characterization is poor, historically unrealistic, and the characters are very unnatural. As a result, One wonders at the end "what was this all about?"

Though it is not all together terrible, it was an unfortunate disappointment for me. Not for mature readers.

This supposed historical murder mystery will disappoint any intelligent reader unless she is deeply into the itinerary and military tactics of Alexander the Great, or what his soldiers wore. Their military clothes, that is. Author P.C. Doherty at one memorable point intrudes a scene of a "transvestite" Athenian footsoldier in makeup and drag swivel-hipping his way around Alexander's first Asia Minor army campsite, near Troy. It is unfortunately a typical example of Doherty's style: ludicrous and ahistorical, thinly written, and utterly unconnected with the plot. We do, eventually, get a fine recreation of Alexander's first great victory against the Persians, complete with what his soldiers wore into battle as well as Alexander's bold tactics, intricate strategies, fiery leadership, and personal bravery. And the Asian countryside is pleasantly depicted. But that's it. As a historical murder mystery, the book collapses, its plot totally unconvincing, its historicity in considerable doubt.

The problem is twofold. First, it appears that Doherty writes his novels at 3 a.m. during caffeine jags. Characterization moves from the muddled and inconsistent to the laughably stick-figure, particularly with Alexander's unruly bevy of battle-competent generals. The writing is hasty, off-putting, jerky. The plot makes little or no sense and moves forward in a similarly jerky, stick-figure fashion. The detective, a young doctor named Telamon, is (uncharacteristically for Doherty) somewhat complex as a person, but not very convincing as a sleuth. It is as though Doherty invented the deus ex machina to keep things moving along. The several villains are given internally inconsistent motivations and characterizations. Alexander himself is stereotypically (and ahistorically) pseudopsychoanalyzed by Doherty as the almost schizoid child of a stern dictatorial womanizing father and a feminist-mystic hysterical termagent of a mother; he is brilliant and commandingly mature at one moment, confused and peevishly childish at another. None of it seems well thought through, much less well plotted.

The second problem is Doherty's day job, as headmaster of an English preparatory school. Or, at least, so it seems. Sex between persons of the same gender, especially between adult and adolescent males, was an accepted commonplace of ancient Greek (as well as late Persian and Roman) society and it was an important part of Alexander's life and exploits. However, sex between students of the same gender, or between adult masters and their students, though constantly a temptation in single-gender boarding schools, is today utterly verboten. A headmaster who wrote in any way approvingly of such would soon be sacked. Doherty obediently follows fashion here, looking down his nose at any same-sex dealings. Moreover, modern readers ignorantly expect all same-sex relationships to be modeled upon and to approximate heterosexual ones; that the range of, and moral attitudes toward, sexual modes such as lesbianism, pedophilia, or transvestism would have been the same in the past as they are now; and that humans can only be either heterosexual or homosexual. Doherty panders blatantly to these oversimplified stupidities. While he admits that Alexander had sexual relations with several men, Doherty explains this away through amateur psychologizing. His adolescent males are either "bum boys," effeminate and mincing, or "normal," without any supposedly effeminate characteristics. Women are either "followers of Sappho" (that is, lesbian), or "straight." The reality of Mediterrenean sexual mapping two milennia ago was amazingly disparate from that of today--male/male permanent adult homosexual relationships were quite uncommon, sex by adult males with children (especially with boys) was normal and common, sexual promiscuity was a normal part of certain religious activities, transvestism was unknown, and males typically had sex with members of both genders during their whole lives, though less so as post-30 adults. (We know almost nothing about adult sexual relations between women.) Doherty seems to pride himself on his historical accuracy with regard to use of source materials, to the known events in Alexander's life, and to military matters, but he prostitutes himself on the altar of modern sexual prudishness when it comes to representing the sexual mores of Alexander's time. Along with his caffeinated writing, it ruins his historical murder mystery, for this reader at least.

Given Paul Doherty's prolific pen, this is the first of his many mysteries I have read. I must confess that I found this enjoyable but nothing makes it outstanding compared to contemporaries such as Davis, Saylor, Gregory et al.
The novel brings in a new sleuth - Telamon, boyhood friend of Alexander, physician extraordinaire - who uses his intellect to move through Alexander's encampment off the Hellespont to pinpoint a murderer who is killing both guides and physicians with some alacrity ensuring that a single winged celtic style dagger is left behind with each body together with quotes from the Iliad designed to unsettle Alexander's mind. In itself, this seems straightforward but Doherty moves beyond the plain murder mystery, taking us into the politics of the time as Alexander prepares to face both Arsites and Memnon, generals of Darius to weave a credible timeline and powerful motivation behind all of the actions. We are shifted from Alexander's camp to Darius palace to witness the thrust and counter of political intrigue as each seeks to confuse and misdirect the other.
In some respects, the place and method of this murder mystery echoes JMR's 'Nobody Loves A Centurion' with the culprit picking off people in a camp where politics is all important. Alexander's failure to gain good auspices, the spying and counterspying of multiple people all mingle to give both motive and opportunity to a range of people. Part of Telamon's problem is to discern precisely who is (or not) a spy and which side they are on.
Telamon is eventually enlists a red-haired Theban ex-slave, ex-handmaiden of Athena who becomes his assistant and, ultimately, provides the vital link to help Telamon discover who Naiphat, and therefore the culprit, is.
Doherty's grasp of the time is good, his characterization excellent (though Telamon seems overly dry occasionally) and his ability to confound the reader makes this an enjoyable read. The reason this only gets four stars is because all the protagonists have such good alibis that becomes inevitable that only one person can be the guilty party several chapters before the denouement. As such it ends up being more confirmation of strong reader's suspicions, rather than a real surprise.
However, this is enjoyable enough to ensure I read the next Alexander mystery from Doherty's pen.