45 B.C.E.  Rome is under a Dictator. Caesar has won the final battle of a bloody Civil War, and Romans are ready for peace.

So, when Lucius Sestius Quirinalis, an aspiring lawyer, is called into his father’s study one autumn morning, he is thinking of nothing more than the family’s latest case. The charge against the historian Sallust is his corrupt rule in Roman Africa. But it is his research into the twenty-year-old Catilinarian Conspiracy which is proving unsettling for some.

The Sestius family are shattered when their friend Caecilius is killed in mistake for Lucius. Their involvement in the case has brought murder to their own house, and Lucius is in danger. With the aid of Cornelius Rufus, his all-knowing informant from the Subura slums, Lucius goes into hiding: his mistake is to choose Hippo Regius where Sallust was governor, and the urge to investigate is irresistible.

 But Caesar’s spies have followed them and so has murder. With nowhere left to hide, Lucius risks a return to Rome and a confrontation with Caesar. In the aftermath of the Ides of March, his questions will be answered.  Caesar, it seems, was not the only one to suffer a betrayal.