Spurius: A Novel - by David László Conhaim Hardcover

Book Synopsis

A political whodunit set in ancient Rome after her victory over Hannibal, Spurius addresses questions of individual freedom and the official distortion of truth that remain highly relevant today.

It is a perilous time for the Roman Republic. Victory over her nemesis Hannibal in the Second Punic War and the subsequent conquest of Greece have led to widespread debauchery and mayhem on the Italian peninsula. Into the breach steps Spurius Postumius Albinus, Consul of Rome in 186 BC, who turns detective to investigate a series of crimes attributed to the cult of the wine god Bacchus that, he argues, threaten the very heart of the State.

Based on events recorded by the Roman historian Livy and confirmed by a surviving bronze plaque in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, Spurius is at once an ancient political whodunit and the first major treatment of a cataclysmic event in Roman history: according to Livy, some 3,500 Romans perished in the witch hunts resulting from Spurius' investigation. In its finely balanced examination of freedom of belief and expression, and the manipulation of truth in times of national emergency, the novel has great relevance to today's troubled world.

About the Author

David László Conhaim is passionate about discovering stories and people somehow lost to history - and to inspire or renew public interest in them. His socially conscious, exhaustively researched novels in recent years have focused on the multiracial struggle for the American West, emphasizing issues of family, identity and belonging. Conhaim's Paul Robeson-inspired Western All Man's Land (Broken Arrow Press, 2019) was selected Finalist Best Novel in the Western Writers of America Spur Awards and won 'Maverick' in the Will Rogers Medallion Awards. His 2021 novel The Unredeemed - a sequel to 2017's Comanche Captive - was a Best Novel winner in the Will Rogers Medallion Awards and a Best Novel finalist in the Western Fictioneers' Peacemaker Awards. In 1995, Conhaim co-founded The Prague Revue, the longest-running literary journal to serve the community of international writers in Prague. For The Prague Revue, he wrote a fictional remembrance of Miguel de Unamuno, which Gore Vidal 'read with delight', republishing it in the 2024 All Man's Land expanded second edition as 'Don Miguel - The Wise'. Conhaim was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1968.