Die Versuchung der Macht: Ein Fall für Spurius Pomponius 6

by Peter Lukasch

Im Sommer des Jahres 174 n. Chr. erreichen beunruhigende Nachrichten das kaiserliche Hauptquartier in Carnuntum. Marc Aurel, der mit seinen Legionen im Barbaricum steht, soll lebensgefährlich erkrankt sein. Zwei Männer bringen sich in Position, um im Falle seines Todes Anspruch auf die Kaiserwürde zu erheben. Der Statthalter von Oberpannonien, Basseus Rufus, und der Statthalter von Syrien, Avidius Cassius. Aliqua, Mitarbeiterin des militärischen Geheimdienstes, gerät durch puren Zufall zwischen die Fronten dieses Machtkampfes und wird auf Befehl des Basseus Rufus, der sie für eine Parteigängerin des Avidius Cassius hält, verhaftet. Als Spurius Pomponius, ihr ehemaliger Partner, davon erfährt, bricht er seinen Romaufenthalt ab und eilt nach Carnuntum zurück, wo auch bereits gegen ihn ein Haftbefehl des Statthalters vorliegt. Er ist gezwungen, in der Maske eines elenden Urinsammlers im Dienste einer Wäscherei, unterzutauchen. Würde ihn nicht Maxima, die Tochter der Wäschereibesitzerin, listig und tatkräftig unterstützen, wäre jeder Versuch, Aliqua zu retten, von vorneherein aussichtslos.

322 pages, Paperback

Published December 16, 2022

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another enjoyable mystery in the Spurius Pomponius series. In this outing, Pomponius hurries back from Rome to save Aliqua from prison. She has been wrongly accused of the death of two men--one an assassin really killed, and she was only defending herself from him. But she is not believed. The governor puts a price on his head. With the help of the sometimes-overbearing fellow Agent, Maxima, at whose laundry he lives, disguised as a poor urine collector he does manage to have her [Aliqua] escape and go to Rome. But his job is no longer finished even though he is no longer in danger from the governor. Masculinius has another task for him; he is to pretend to be a kitchen drudge [not horribly disguised this time] and then waiter at a banquet. He and Maxima, with her posing as his wife and now a gardener, travel to the same estate in Savaria [now in present-day Hungary, with a Hungarian name]. The governor, Basseus Rufus, is afraid of being poisoned, have once escaped an assassination attempt at a theatrical performance [--at which Pomponius had joined the production playing a dancing wild boar as part of solving one of his previous cases] and a poisoning--someone else got the dose intended for him. They are supposed to protect Rufus. Another task awaits when this is concluded satisfactorily. Two governors are jockeying for power in case Marcus Aurelius dies, and the emperor is very sick. Ergo, the title The Temptation of Power. Pomponius and Maxima uncover and foil a conspiracy to put one of the governors on the throne, should the emperor die. Some of the usual other characters in the series didn't enter the story until late, and I thought the story would be poorer without them, but to my relief, they did appear.
This series is one of my favorites, and I hope one day for an English translation of all volumes, and it will get a much wider readership.