Books like Arms of Nemesis by Steven Saylor

Mario Puzo traces the rise of the Borgia family, revealing the intertwined forces of ambition, faith, and power that shaped one of Italy’s most notorious dynasties.

When the young Cicero enlists Gordianus the Finder, the seasoned detective must unravel a patricide case that pits ambition against justice in ancient Rome.

Prince Claudius, through wit and survival, recounts his reluctant reign over Rome, his efforts to restore stability after Caligula, alliances with Herod Agrippa, the conquest of Britain, and the political intrigues with his wife Messalina.

When her husband is presumed lost at sea, Lara Hawksworth’s cold marriage is shattered—and replaced by a tender, dangerous lover who claims to be her missing husband.

In nine crime tales set in ancient Rome, Gordianus the Finder solves murders while exploring social life from Sulla’s reign to the Spartacus revolt.

In 52 B.C., Rome erupts into riots after the murder of politician Publius Clodius on the Appian Way. Gordianus the Finder is hired by Pompey the Great to uncover the truth amid political intrigue and looming civil war.

This is Naples as you've never seen it before. A chaotic, shadowy city full of ominous echoes and dark alleyways where each inhabitant seems too absorbed by his or her own problems to give a damn about anybody else. And that is exactly what makes it possible for a cold, methodical killer to commit his atrocious crimes largely undisturbed, to merge with the crowd as if he were invisible. The newspapers call him "The Crocodile" because, like a crocodile, when he devours his own children, he cries. And like a crocodile he is a perfect killing machine: he waits and watches until his prey is within range, and then he strikes. Three young people with very diverse backgrounds have been found murdered in three different neighborhoods, each shot with a single bullet, execution style. While his colleagues see little or no connection, Inspector Giuseppe Lojacono, smells a rat. He is driven by his instincts and his own troubled recent history. He has just been transferred to Naples from Sicily where a Mafioso-turned-informant accused him of leaking sensitive information to the mob. Once an esteemed member of the mobile unit of the Agrigento police force, Lojacono has lost everything, first and foremost the love of his wife and daughter. But now he's been given a second chance and a shot at clearing his name. A young magistrate, the beautiful Laura Piras, wants him in Naples. She's heard of his preternatural skills and his incredible powers of observation and she thinks a man like him is needed in Naples. So it is that Inspector Lojacono is charged with finding the link between the three dead bodies. At the root of these murders, he will discover, is a pain that still burns, a sense of guilt than cannot be purged, and one all-consuming love.

In the turbulence of 49‑45 B.C., Gordianus the Finder is pulled into a deadly conspiracy when a Pompeian cousin is murdered, forcing him to navigate the perilous politics between Caesar and Pompey to protect his family.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson race to Edinburgh to investigate the murders of two workers on the Palace of Holyrood House, uncovering a plot linked to the historic assassination of David Rizzio, the Italian secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots.