Gary Corby – författare

It's not long before his mission turns far graver - to stop a plot to invade and destroy Athens. With this added urgency, Nico embarks on a mission to Ephesus. His first stop: meeting with Ephesus' proxenos to Athens, who is found murdered, before Nico can question him. Along the way, Nico encounters almost every possible setback and calamity. He soon finds himself in possession of Asia, who he purchased off a slave block thinking she held a key to his mission. He learns she is the daughter of the most powerful diplomat in Ephesus, Themistocles, also the most famous traitor to Athens in recent history. On his way to return Asia, he encounters his great love Diotima, who had left him to become a priestess, but joins them on their mission. They become the toast of a banquet held by Themistocles, where the lines between loyalty and traitorousness are blurred, and the threat to Athenian democracy is again made abundantly real.

Nicolaos walks the mean streets of Classical Athens as an agent for the promising young politician Pericles. His mission is to find the assassin of the statesman Ephialtes, the man who brought democracy to Athens and whose murder has thrown the city into uproar. It's a job not made any easier by the depressingly increasing number of dead witnesses. But murder and mayhem don't bother Nico; what's really on his mind is how to get closer (much closer) to Diotima, the intelligent and annoyingly virgin priestess of Artemis, and how to shake off his irritating twelve year-old brother Socrates. "The Pericles Commission" is the first in an exciting new series by first-time novelist Gary Corby, who takes us to Ancient Greece at one of the most exciting times in history. In this wonderfully approachable, historically rich novel, Athens is brought vividly to life in a mystery engaging from the first page to last.