Saturn's Gold

Aulus Manlius Torquatus, twenty-three years old, has everything: a wealthy patrician family, military distinction under Julius Caesar, and the friendship of Caesar's heir, Octavian. But this is 43 BC, and Rome's warlords are engaged in a killing spree, slaughtering the rich to finance their war against Caesar's killers. Torquatus' republican father and brother are dead, and his mother has not forgiven him for changing sides. Octavian has put him in charge of a frighteningly empty State Treasury, and he has reluctantly been persuaded to store a large amount of Octavian's cash at his suburban farm. When that money is stolen, he must track it down or face ruin. He suspects Octavian's colleague Marcus Antonius, who has always claimed that the money was his and that letters authorising its removal were forged. Torquatus' household is as damaged as the state, and after the violent death of his steward Torquatus must track down a murderer as well as a thief.
Not that he has no help: his secretary Demetrius runs the household with quiet efficiency, diligently archiving the family's correspondence in his spare time. The new slave Iucundus, too, seems a quick and clever lad. And Torquatus' sister Manlia brings him much-needed support. Manlia's contacts among the women of Rome suggest that a political plot is being hatched, an idea Torquatus rejects: Rome's rulers have shown how they deal with dissent. But Antonius, Torquatus realises is also trying to find the money. Why doesn't he know where it is, if he was behind the theft? Torquatus is attacked in the Forum, and left for dead: next day Octavian shows him an anonymous letter accusing him of forgery. Iucundus comes under suspicion for the Forum attack, and when the master's missing writing-tablets are found among Iucundus' things Torquatus calls in the torturers, before following up his only clue, a brief message scratched on a bit of lead. As he and Antonius race each other for the money, another death in his household seems motiveless. And then Octavian introduces a further problem for Torquatus to solve: his great-uncle Julius Caesar's papers, lost on campaign. Octavian suspects Torquatus' brother, long dead, of stealing them. Can Torquatus find them and clear his name of one last, hideous accusation?