A To Z Blogging Challenge 2025: Mysteries: G Is For Gordianus the Finder

 I said I’d tell you about another mystery series set in Ancient Rome and here it is!

Gordianus the Finder is a private detective in a series written by Steven Saylor, Roma Sub Roma. He lives in an earlier era than Falco, the time of the Roman Republic and while the Falco novels have some historical figures in them, the Gordianus books have a lot of them, and they are set during actual historical events. The first novel, Roman Blood, involves an early legal case actually conducted by Cicero in 80 BCE. Cicero hires Gordianus to help his case. 

Gordianus lives with his slave/housekeeper Bethesda. She is his lover, the only woman in his life, and they eventually marry. In the first book, he adopts a boy, Eco, whose mother is gone. He has lost his speech, though he does get it back in the second novel, Arms of Nemesis, set during the Spartacus slave uprising, when we meet the Roman millionaire Marcus Crassus. In between, there is the short story collection House Of The Vestals, which includes a “Christmas” story, “The Saturnalia Silver”, in which Bethesda solves the mystery of the missing silver and goes with Gordianus to the Roman version of Carols by Candlelight. (Who knew?) It was written for a Christmas anthology and reprinted in this collection. 

The novels are spread out over the years with historical events, unlike the Falco stories which are crowded together within a few years. 

They are not humorous like the Falco series - in fact, they’re often terribly serious. To be honest, I prefer the Lindsey Davis books.  But they are well worth a read if you want to read something that is as much history as mystery, and Gordianus’s children have time to grow up. 

I recently bought the first four books in ebook, in one volume. It wasn’t too expensive either. Or you can buy them in print, if you prefer, from your favourite online bookseller.