Asesinato en las afueras

61 BC, Rome. Consulate of Pisone and Corvino. The young quaestor Flavio Callido, to recover from the fatigue of Roman life, granted himself a day of rest in the villa of his father Espurio, who had been an important figure on the political scene during the dictatorship of Sila. When he arrives at the domus, what Callido finds is an atmosphere very different from the typical tranquility of the countryside that he expected. The night before, Cecilia, Lucio Calpurnio Bestia's second wife, one of Espurio's illustrious guests, along with the former consul Murena and Fausta Cornelia, daughter of the dictator Sila, died. All the guests believe that it is a death from natural causes, except Marciana, Cecilia's adoptive mother and Cato's cousin of Utica. In fact, during the night Cecilia had been saved from an attack and had accused Licinia, Murena's sister, of wanting to kill her so that she could marry the noble Beast. The two patricians are united by strong common interests; At a time when Catilina's conspiracy has left a power vacuum, Pompeo and Julius Caesar must be stopped, who are gaining more and more power. And Cecilia was an obstacle. It will be Flavio Callido who will have to discover what is behind the tragic death of the woman and also the death of a slave and the disappearance of a slave, the latter facts that do not seem to interest anyone. But discovering the truth could be more dangerous than the quaestor himself can imagine.