Unhinged Emperors in the Ancient Mediterranean + Horowitz mystery series you should read

This is our first episode, and we're starting our journey in the ancient Mediterranean. Welcome to the Book and the Vibe, a mostly historical fiction podcast. I'm your host, Helen Cabay, a former corporate executive who recently traded conference calls for books, travel, and the places that stories take us. I live near Richmond, Virginia, and I say mostly historical fiction this week because our main review will always be historical fiction, but sometimes I'll bring you an extra bonus review of something entirely different. Do you reach for historical fiction often, but maybe not exclusively, and want to know what kind of world you will inhabit inside your next book? If so, you're in the right place. When you're here, we're all about spoiler-free book reviews founded on the joy of getting lost in a story. I talk about atmosphere and vibe for readers who yearn to explore the places and times they read about. Today in the main review, I'll talk about what I considered to be a five-star read about one of history's most notorious emperors. We'll also unearth some real-life disturbing behavior exhibited by his uncle, who was equally as infamous and likely influenced his nephew. I'll also tell you what's so special about London bookstores and serve up a second, shorter bonus review written by one of my favorite prolific writers cranking out mysteries today. So, pour yourself a glass of something red, but make sure no one poisoned it. And let's talk about Nero, set in the first century AD by Con Igledon. Now, Con Igledon is an author I started reading this year and am now fully hooked on. Nero, as you may have guessed, is the story of this infamous emperor's family, childhood, and rise to power, an eventual reign in ancient Rome. If you like slightly unhinged, powerful families, imperial politics of the personal kind, and books where everyone is scheming across every page to survive or rise, you're going to want to pick this up. Really quickly, you may be asking yourself why we chose Nero as our first book to review for the podcast. Well, I'll tell you. First, this is the first book of a trilogy, and the final book was very recently released, so it was now a completed trilogy you can pick up. Secondly, we recently bought plane tickets to spend 10 days in Italy, so fair warning, you may see some books set in Italy in the Roman Empire pop up here and there this season. But for Nero, the first thing you'll want to know is that he is only five years old by the end of the book. I know, now you're asking, then what on earth is this book about, Helen? But stick with me. Nero starts with a very dramatic chariot ride, with Nero's father, who is racing to Rome to save his family, but not really willingly. I won't spoil anything else about the plot, but he also happens to be a famous chariot racer. That much you learn in the first couple of pages, as you also learn you have landed in the fascinating time a few decades after Julius Caesar's assassination, and you're firmly in a society ruled largely through the incredibly messy, slightly incestuous family that historians call the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and the Roman Republic is now a memory. By the way, give the family tree for these guys a quick look, but don't try too hard to understand it because it simply raises more questions than answers, because no tree in the real world resembles this thing. If this were pure fiction and not historical fiction, you'd be forgiven for writing some of the bigger events off as too outlandish to be believable. This is prestige soap for men and women, and I love that kind of story when it's written convincingly. There's betrayal, adoption, marriage, divorce, exile, and poison. But ambition is the most potent element present, and everyone is relentlessly sorting everyone that comes into their orbit into one of three camps. Who's useful, who's dangerous, and who needs to completely disappear. Now, if Nero is only five years old by the end of the book, what is it about? Well, it's about his mother, Agrippina the Younger. Have you heard of her? I had not, and knew nothing about her when I started the book, and was surprised she was the center of the book. The reason I was surprised is down to the logistics of how I found this book, more on that airhead moment I had a little later. My immediate impression after reading this was if there is one thing to intrigue you to read this story, I would say it is this. By the end of her life, Agrippina was a sister to one emperor who was utterly insane. She was then the wife of a stuttering, somewhat fumbling emperor who became emperor simply because he was the last guy standing. And finally, she was the mother to the infamous Emperor Nero. Mother, sister, and wife to three different emperors. So you can't tell me the story behind building that resume isn't going to be a great read if you have a good author, and luckily we do for this book. While it's pretty common knowledge, Nero was known for some serious debauchery in his time. Agrippina is also the sister of the spectacularly unstable and equally infamous emperor Caligula. And, in this author's hands, Agrippina rivals both of these men for her ability to manipulate and influence history with the hand she's been dealt. Agrippina is ambitious, strategic, and beyond ruthless when she needs to be, perfectly capable of ripping her own heart out at a moment's notice if that's what she needs to do. She is everywhere at all times, but also can shrink down and appear meek when she needs to to fit societal expectations. She is calculating and becoming exactly what the man she's influencing needs her to truly be from one moment to the next. And this behavior is fascinating instead of annoying here, especially since influencing men is virtually the only agency available to her given the time she lives in and the circumstance. And she's quite good at it. And you have to admire her, but she does some really awful things along the way. But frankly, you really start to understand at a bone-deep level why she does these things as more of the pages turn. On a related note, do you ever wonder why people living in prehistory or ancient times are so fascinating and such fertile ground for books like this? In the case of ancient Romans, I think we find them mesmerizing because they have very relatable human emotions and we certainly recognize ourselves, but so many of their customs and societal norms are utterly alien to us. So we end up with this equation where we get to sit and ponder how would we personally respond in this alien world? What if we grew up with a sibling who could, with one word, indulge their petty jealousies and rivalries from childhood and who had the power to exact their revenge on us in spectacularly deadly fashion at any given moment? Are you picturing your sibling or cousins in childhood now? Is it no big deal? Or are you starting to get mildly concerned? In other words, the absolute power held by emperors takes everything to the next level. Someone may experience some pretty dark stuff from their imperial relatives. They may be poisoned at Sunday dinner or forced to commit suicide in shame, or perhaps bricked up in a wall to die or banished to live or literally live in a dark room for years on end. Needless to say, the stakes in this particularly human yet alien environment make for excellent reading. The book is narrated in third person, and that was a smart choice because while this is certainly largely Agrippina story, we do get to bounce around a little bit and inhabit alternative headspaces. And this absolutely adds to the propulsiveness of the narrative without feeling jarring when it occurs. I ended up reading Nero because I accidentally bought the sequel to it in the historical fiction section of a London bookstore without realizing it was book two. My excuse for this oversight is that when I'm traveling, one of my indulgences is going into bookstores and letting myself buy physical books without researching them first. So when I sat down and got ready to read Tyrant, which is the name of the second book, I realized it was the second in the trilogy. So of course I immediately downloaded and began Nero on my Kindle. Let me insert a five-second PSA for you guys on the topic of London bookstores. Most all of them have actual sections dedicated to historical fiction that are quite sizable. They also have a lot of tables with spy books, which is another favorite genre of mine. I went solo to London last time, and this allowed me to browse a lot and come home with, frankly, an embarrassing number of books in my suitcase. But let's talk characters from Nero. They are mostly people you don't necessarily like, but you cannot turn away from the situations they get into. Of course, it's also filled with real historical figures as well as those woven in for the sake of the story, and all of them are written with a sure hand by Igledon. Claudius, for example, the emperor famous for stuttering, but also considered incredibly bright, is portrayed as very human here. The book weaves in his physical ailments, including his piles, which, yes, is a digestive issue, and yes, it comes up and is gross. But it does not make him a total joke. You see how he wielded power in spite of his physical ailments, but you also see how they were exploited by those closest to him at times. As for Agrippina, she is not written as a woman with modern sensibility. She is also not turned into a misunderstood heroine lost from history. Honestly, I don't know if I liked her or not, but I could not stop reading about the daily drama she dealt with and schemes she started into motion. Although this is high drama with blood and betrayal ever present, this never comes close to tipping into melodrama. I also found the prose to be very easy to read, something this author is certainly known for. However, the dialogue feels authentic enough to the time period so it does not break the spell. Let's briefly touch on the dramatic events and big historical moments the author chose to include. Since I don't do spoilers, I'll simply say this is one of those historical fiction books that sent me to Google pretty frequently. On our Google the reality scale, something I just made up, let's say on a scale of one to five, I give it a three for frequency I wanted to check in with Google on accuracy. I mostly looked up the big stuff that felt over the top. I had to know did that really happen? Was that relationship real? Did this person actually die that way? And very often the answer was yes. Two big questions for any first book in a trilogy. Number one, do I want to keep reading the other books in the series? Yes. By the end of this book, I was 100% interested in seeing how Con Igledon would ultimately choose to portray Nero as a teen and in his adult years after seeing the unhinged world he grew up in. I've already read the second book, which I'll bring as a brief bonus review in a future episode. And I have the final book in the trilogy checked out from the library right now. The second question to ask about the first book of a trilogy or a series is can you read the first book without progressing further and without feeling shortchanged? And I guess related to that question, which we'll call to B, is how big is the cliffhanger at the end of the first book? In the case of Nero, you certainly could go straight into book two if that's how you like to read. However, if you don't want to keep reading the series after the first book, you'll be glad to know it wraps up enough to be a satisfying read entirely on its own without any major cliffhangers. But I bet you want to keep going to see what else happens. So now let's quickly talk about stats before we move on to our unearthed segment. Nero is about 430 pages, which felt like the perfect length. I read it in about three days. I give it five stars, and I did put about three or four books between this and the sequel. It was strong enough that I was tempted to go straight into the next book, but I do like to take a break between books in a series to prevent burnout. Do you guys do that or do you read straight through a series? Goodreads averages this at 4.19 stars with about 5,000 ratings. I think most reviews that didn't give it five stars are largely because people expected it to be about Nero when this first one is about his mother. But now you know it's about his mother to start. And if you want to sit in the front row and watch what it may have been like to be sister, wife, and mother to three different emperors with three wildly different personalities, then pick up Nero by Con Igledon. Let's go to our unearthed segment where we pull up a piece of real history, context, gossip, or weirdness that makes the book more fun to read. But without spoiling the plot. Have you heard or read about Nero's uncle Caligula? There's no way Agrippina's brother, Caligula, was not at least a little certifiably insane. And I think there's simply no way that his behavior and legend did not influence and at times inspire Nero during his reign. So let's talk about Nero's insane uncle Caligula and three things that Caligula did that have historians still debating the mental health of this entire dynasty of rulers that came fairly close on the heels of Julius Caesar. Number three, Caligula was not unique in ordering executions, but how was he unique in his style? Well, he was known to insist that the immediate family of the executed person dine with him immediately after the execution, expecting the grieving spouse or children or parents to laugh, drink, and be impressed with his stories and jokes over dinner, all while he watched them closely for signs of disloyalty. I mean, talk about needing a poker face to survive. Number two, when Caligula was on military campaign near the English Channel in 40 AD, he abandoned the invasion at the French shore just before crossing and ordered his soldiers to draw their swords, slice at the ocean's wave, and gather up seashells in what he called the spoils of the sea. Okay, there's got to be more to it, I know. And to be fair, he did likely order this as part of his penchant for humiliating people who displeased him. The Roman legions had become openly terrified of crossing the channel as they progressed, and modern historians suggest Caligula demanded that they carry out this truly bizarre behavior and follow his orders to capture the sea cells as a form of humiliation to punish their fear over the crossing. I think being around Caligula was somewhat like the ancient version of a gangster making everyone uneasy, constantly wondering if and when he will flip from maybe jovial to disturbing, like when Joe Pesci asks Ray Leota if he thinks he's a funny guy and good fellas, which brings us to the number one thing, in my opinion, that best illustrates Caligula's crazy behavior. He had a favorite racehorse that lived in a marble stable and all around outlandish amounts of comfort that were more on par with human royalty than horse. Caligula continually claimed he was going to name the horse as a Roman consul, which was the highest political office representing the people at the time. Now many historians argue it was simply a threat intended to be a political insult, but apparently he took it far enough that I'm calling it a loose screw. Caligula promoted this horse to the office of official priest within his personal imperial cult. We won't even talk about the fact that he had a personal imperial cult. He regularly had the horse join imperial dinners when he was hosting senators, forcing guests to raise their glasses and toast to the horse's long life while the horse was wandering around the dinner tables. And on top of this, there were no less than 18 slaves whose sole purpose was to care for this one horse. And here's my favorite part invitations to dinner were even sent out and signed as if it came from the horse itself, inviting people to be the horse's guest in his living space, which was filled with fine furniture. So I'm calling Caligula unhinged at the very least. But in his nephew Nero's case, Con Eggledon seems to be going all in on exploring nature versus nurture in his series about Nero. Since this is our first episode, let me briefly fill you in on what you can expect from the rest of the show before we move on. We began with our main review. After that, we moved into the segment called Unearthed, which is of course our term for digging up the past, and we just finished it. Our third segment, which is where we're headed next, will rotate among a small handful of topics. I'm calling it the tavern. One week we may talk about our lives as readers, another about our recent travels or trips we're still dreaming about taking. Sometimes, like this week, we'll serve up a second bonus book review, and it will very often not be historical fiction. So I guess I've now given away the reason for the disclaimer in our subtitle, a mostly historical fiction podcast. Because I read historical fiction often, but not exclusively, and I want to bring some of those other books to you as well. So without further ado, let's talk about our bonus book, A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz. This is actually the sixth book in a mystery series, so your immediate question will probably be, Helen, why on earth are you starting with book six? Don't worry, I'm going to talk about it in a way that helps you decide whether the entire series, not merely this sixth installment, might be a good fit for you. Let me explain the setup. Anthony Horowitz writes himself into these books as a fictionalized version of Anthony Horowitz. That's a successful author, television writer, mystery writer, and generally accomplished person who still somehow allows nearly everyone in these books to walk all over him. This series is told in first person from his perspective, and we follow Horowitz as he plays a very reluctant Watson to a 100% fictional character and former police detective named Daniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne is uncommonly brilliant, irritating, secretive, and someone I cannot decide whether I would want to follow around for several days or just avoid altogether. And I think Horowitz feels the same way. Former Detective Hawthorne approaches our author, Horowitz, about writing books based on the crimes he solves. Horowitz agrees, albeit quite reluctantly, and their increasingly strange, tense, and humorous relationship becomes the ongoing thread connecting the series. In another nod to Sherlock Holmes, while Hawthorne is no longer officially a member of the police force, they do bring him in for the especially difficult cases only, the ones that seem unsolvable to everyone else. I'm not going to tell you why he is no longer on the force because that would be a spoiler, but the reason is eventually revealed, and it adds another layer of tension to the entire series. The books move surprisingly easily between dark mystery and off-beat comedy. In fact, if I had to describe the vibe of the series, it would be this. Imagine the cast of one of the 1980s or 90s sitcoms that had really quirky characters wandered onto the set of a modern, slightly dark PBS murder mystery, and everyone decided to keep the best writers around to document and tell you what happens next. As the series progresses, it becomes increasingly meta-upon meta, and that is something Horowitz earns and builds upon. Somehow, the premise never collapses under its own cleverness. Instead, you delight in the circumstances and their cases, as well as their increasingly awkward relationship. It is always a great payoff for the reader when Hawthorne finally deigns to reveal the solution at the end, while Horowitz more or less slaps himself on the forehead for failing to see what Hawthorne apparently considered obvious all along. It is also incredibly entertaining to watch the author Horowitz become more and more fascinated and annoyed in equal parts by the former detective. The meta setup may sound a little complicated when I explain it out loud, but the real life author pulls it off brilliantly. Honestly, I think the man writes in his sleep. He produces so much work, and I get the sense that he genuinely enjoys inventing increasingly difficult premises for himself and then proving he can make them work in his books, since it's certainly not the only unique premise for a book series he has going on, in addition to all the TV scripts he's written. This particular series has become an automatic buy for me whenever a new installment is released. And I read his latest, a deadly episode, over the 4th of July at the lake, when I was specifically in the mood for a fun but satisfying mystery that could be gobbled down in a couple of days. In fact, it was light enough I could consume it in the midst of the chaos of having my family, including our eight-month-old 80-pound puppy, in the house, as well as my brother-in-law, two kids, and their tiny Yorkie dog. I tell you, I really needed a vacation after that vacation. Despite the ease of the prose, these books have just enough nuance and originality that I don't finish them off feeling as though I've just consumed the literary equivalent of an entire bag of lazed potato chips. I sometimes get that feeling after reading certain modern mysteries and thrillers being churned out today. You know the ones. The title usually includes a word like uh lake, husband, cabin, or lies. Am I forgetting any? I'm sure I am. In fact, this could probably become a game. Name every word currently being used in the title of the latest domestic thriller. Let me wind down this bonus review with three quick, tangible reasons this series has been such a hit for me and made Be for you too. First, just as historical fiction allows us to travel into another era or place, this series lets us visit a world most of us do not ordinarily inhabit. Famous writers, television producers, movie directors, actors, agents, publishers, and all the meetings and contracts and backstage complications surrounding them. Steven Spielberg even appears in one of the books, if I remember correctly. So did the interaction happen exactly as Horowitz writes it or at all? Who knows? You cannot help wondering how much he borrows from his real life and whether his friends occasionally point to one of his historical creations or one of his fictional creations and ask him at their next dinner, hey, is this supposed to be me? Second, Horowitz clearly loves London and England. Even though the series is set in the modern day, the books have a very strong sense of place, and he often slips in an interesting historical detail along the way. One of these books has convinced me I should lodge in one of the London suburbs where the story was set instead of London proper next time I go. And our third reason is the cast of characters. Let's start with the main one. Horowitz is an enjoyable person to walk around with for several hundred pages. He is funny in a dry, self-deprecating way and has no problem using his own flaws as part of the joke. He is constantly attempting to have one normal conversation with Hawthorne that does not end with the former detective making him feel like an idiot. As for the rest, he creates vivid characters quickly and makes them memorable, which really matters in a mystery. I need to remember who everyone is without constantly flipping backward and trying to keep all the suspects straight. I personally do not take notes or spend much time actively trying to solve the mystery while reading these kind of books. I'm really in it for the story more than the puzzle. Let's wrap up with the stats. I usually read these books very quickly. Each one is roughly 350 to 400 pages. The Goodreads ratings tend to hover around 3.9 stars, but my own ratings have generally landed between 4.25 and 5 stars. I gave the latest installment, a deadly episode, 4.5 stars, docking it slightly because the ending felt a little abrupt, and we did not receive much additional emotional insight into Hawthorne's background. And that's an important part of the series arc, and I just wanted a little more progress here. However, I will give Horowitz credit. He is clearly working on something resembling a Memoriarty element into the larger story, which is an excellent idea. I just wish he would get to it a little faster, but that's a quibble. So if all of this sounds appealing, begin with the first book, the word is murder. It starts with the mother of a famous actor being murdered only a few hours after she walks into a funeral home and plans her own funeral. The books are known as the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, written by Anthony Horowitz. And let me know what you think about having a bonus review here in the tavern. Do you like it? Or would you rather hear another kind of book-adjacent conversation? As we wind this first episode down, I'll let you know that at the end of each episode, I'll sign off with what I'm calling a note from the road. I'm calling it that because this podcast is historical fiction, but it's also about the places our books inspire us to travel. And we are going to come full circle today and finish up with a note from Italy. However, since I have not yet been to Rome where Nero was set, let's touch on where I have already been in Italy, which includes Florence. It was just my husband and I when we went. We left the kid with the grandparents, and my husband absolutely loved the city. Something he kept pointing out that I never would have noticed was that the doors in Florence were almost all gorgeous and heavy wood, but he also noticed they almost all had the most unique, large, statement-making door knockers that you've ever seen. I'll post pictures, if I can find it, uh in our notes of the road section on the website. So picture giant lion heads, geometric shapes, shields, grotesque faces, hands folded in prayer with ornate rings, and also made out of various materials. And apparently there's a way to read into these door knockers, and the resident's choice of knocker shape and material said something about them and the personality of the household, like this is a humorous family, or someone that wanted you to know about their family lineage, or someone that wanted you to feel warm and welcome, or perhaps someone that wanted you to know you should mind your manners here. It was something I never would have noticed, and it became something we enjoyed looking at the rest of our time there. It's not too surprising Tim picked up on this since he is a residential contractor and highly skilled carpenter. While Rome is not his first pick for one of our next adventures, when we go, I am looking forward to his unique take on what he enjoys while we're there, because we tend to have diverging sensibilities when we travel, but that really makes it interesting. On a related note, as I just mentioned, we are headed to Italy again, this time with the kid in tow to Rome and Sicily. So if you have any sights you think are a must-see, or any great historical fiction books you think I should read set in Sicily or Rome, I would love your suggestions. Email me at thebookinthevibe.com or go to thebookinthevibe.com and send me a note. I also welcome all of your thoughts on the podcast. Well, that's it for our inaugural episode. Next time we're going to the Dark Ages of Britain, and I hope you'll join us. Thank you for spending your time with me this week. May this be the year you read a book about a castle while you're staying at a castle, or whatever your historical fiction loving heart desires.