Books like A murder on the Appian Way by Steven Saylor

When the famed Roman road becomes the scene of a high‑profile murder, the city descends into chaos. Publius Clodius, a populist politician, is killed after a clash with antithetical rival Titus Milo, who is immediately put on trail. In the aftermath Pompey the Great commissions private investigator Gordianus the Finder to determine the real circumstances of the murder, confronting a tangled web of accusations, conspiracies, and court trials. As Cicero defends Milo and the Clodians seek vengeance, Rome’s political balance teeters, and even the Senate House is consumed by arson. Amid the turmoil, Pompey and Julius Caesar observe from a distance, each seizing the opportunity to further their ambitions. Gordianus is called upon to sift fact from rumor, to decide whether Clodius’s killer is a villain or a saviour of the Republic—an investigation that hinges on the shifting allegiances and chaotic strife that threatens the very fabric of Rome.

First publish date: 1996