The Legionary from Londinium and other Mini Mysteries [Paperback]

Caroline Lawrence has come through once again with another exciting and entertaining collection of mini-mysteries to complement her 17-volume opus: The Roman Mysteries. As with her previous collection of mini-mysteries (Trimalchio's Feast), these stories occur at various points along the Roman Mysteries timeline (Caroline lets us know precisely where each mini-mystery fits in along her carefully constructed RM story arc, with brief introductions). Everything fits into place - just as our heroine Flavia Gemina neatly puts together her available clues to solve each mystery.

While fans may be saddened to read that Caroline has finished writing The Roman Mysteries, fans (who have been growing up over the years that Caroline has been writing these novels) can take heart in Caroline's promise of an upcoming Flavian Trilogy - intended for older readers.

I know I'll be looking forward to further tales of Roman mystery from Caroline Lawrence!

It was a sad day when I completed the final book in Caroline Lawrence's The Roman Mysteries series; not for a long time have I so compulsively tracked down each installment in a book series. But with the publication of this collection of short stories (or mini-mysteries) it would seem that Lawrence isn't quite done with her amateur detectives.

In an interesting introduction Lawrence reveals that she originally planned for the series to be eighteen books long, with her quartet of detectives: Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia and Lupus, traveling to Britannica under Roman occupation. This plan had to be scrapped when she realized that the journey would not fit into her carefully plotted timeline, but she compensates for the lost story in a two-part mystery presented here, along with four other short mysteries.

Lawrence's grasp of her own continuity throughout the books is impeccable, and the stories here can tie in so closely with the events in the main books that it's almost worth reading each short story in chronological order, alternating between it and the novels themselves. In "Death By Medusa" for example, Flavia learns draws upon something she learnt in The Sirens of Surrentum and in doing so discovers something of utmost importance in Man from Pomegranate Street.

Each story comes with a small introduction by Lawrence, discussing her inspiration for each tale, and along with the usual maps and glossary, Lawrence also recounts a competition that she held with her readers at the Museum of London, asking them for ideas on how to adapt a Sherlock Holmes mystery for the Roman Mysteries and how this formed the basis of the story "The Five Barley Grains." It's a fascinating look into the thought-process of a wonderfully creative author, and it promises more to come in this fantastic series.

In "The Moon in Full Daylight" Flavia and Nubia are on their way home when they are distracted by the sight of the crescent moon present in the afternoon sky. Their dawdling brings them to the attention of a little boy crying by the fountain, and on realizing that he's gravely ill, they take him to Doctor Mordecai's house. Trying to piece together the clues to his identity and the reasons to why he's been poisoned, Flavia realizes that - like the moon - the answer is right in front of her; she just hasn't noticed it.

It is in the book's namesake, "The Legionary from Londinium" that Lawrence solves the problem of Flavia not traveling to Britannica by utilizing the Sherlock Holmes technique of "the armchair mystery" in which the detective solves a puzzle without ever having left their own home. Flavia has already done something similar in "Trilmachios Feast", but here she has a more intricate mystery to solve when she's visited by a man named Probus who claims to have recently returned from Roman Britain.

Flavia impresses him by performing a "cold reading" on him (deducing aspects of his life by his physical appearance), and the man goes on to tell her that he wants her to discover where a treasure is hidden. On the run from the warrior-queen Boudica, Probus was separated from his friend whose dying words hinted at the location of a buried treasure. After hearing his enigmatic final words and getting a detailed description of the house from whence the treasure came (which is actually based on a real reconstruction of a Roman villa in Britain), Flavia provides her client with the likely answer.

Written as a letter from Flavia to her friend Pulchra, the story is continued in "The Five Barley Grains," set several months later. Probus has retrieved his treasure, but it seems to have come with a curse. After being found drowned in the baths, Probus's inheritor comes to Flavia for help in discovering who is behind sending each family member an envelope of five barley grains: the sign of a disgraced soldier and a warning for imminent death. New light is shed on Probus's original story as it was told to Flavia in "The Legionary", and the story concludes with a rather suspenseful race against time, a fitting finish to a tale that begins with the words "it was a dark and stormy night".

Other stories include "Death by Medusa" in which a man on the beach drops down dead in front of Jonathan with odd marks on his body and no sign of any assailant, and "The Perseus Prophecy" in which Flavia suspects that there's more to the death of a woman killed by a falling oscillum than what first appears.

Finally, "Threptus and the Sacred Chickens" stars a young boy introduced in the final book of the main series, to whom Lupus bequeathed his stylus and writing tablet. Now Threptus wants to follow in his hero's footsteps by learning how to read and write - but to do that he needs funding - and to do *that* he needs a mystery. Luckily one is just around the corner when he meets a man who is desperate to find one of his sacred oracular chickens. It's a sweet little story that promises more adventures to come.

Fans of The Roman Mysteries will lap up this new collection of tales, and hopefully it bodes well for the upcoming Flavian trilogy.

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