Stone Cold

by Marilyn Todd

Book Overview

The Watcher waited until she bent down to gather a handful of bilberries. The woodland floor was soft and springy. The Watcher's feet made no sound. Claudia was just ten when her father marched off to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0727861875
• ISBN13: 9780727861870
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Severn House
• Length: 236 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

One of the Best Yet

Claudia the beautiful widow of a deceased wine merchant has left the fleshpots of Rome on a mission to find her father who vanished without trace 15 years ago leaving a broken hearted wife and ten year old Claudia to fend for themselves. He had gone into Gaul with the Roman legions and never been heard of since. When Claudia reaches the place of his disappearance her persistent questions about her father stir up a hornets nest of intrigue and subterfuge. It seems nobody wants to talk about what happened 15 years ago, particularly the Chief Druid of the area. However it is not long before Claudia is befriended by Marcia, who is said to be the richest woman in that area of Gaul. Marcia insists that a Roman matron of Claudia's standing cannot stay alone in an inn and takes her back to her private villa. It is not long before Orbilio from the secret police turns up at the villa, as he never seems to be far from wherever Claudia happens to be and their love hate relationship continues to smoulder. Orbilio is on the trail of some child abductors who are running their dirty business from the local town and he receives help from an unlikely quarter. Several young women have also gone missing from the area, are the two crimes tied together and has the man called the `Scarecrow' who is living wild in the woods surrounding Marcia's villa anything to do with the crimes . . .

A gaulish sojourn

Todd has her fiery heroine, Claudia Seferius, outside Rome again for this eleventh irreverent mystery, as she hotfoots it to Gaul having told Orbilio that she's checking the soil in the Gaulish town of Santonum in order to grow more vines. A terrible lie, of course, that has Orbilio coming after her, tormented by images of Claudia and Junius and on a case to capture child slave peddlers. Within a hundred pages we are introduced to a motley collection of people working for Marcia, divorced and ruthless entrepreneur of the town, as they create a winter wonderland at her home. With Marcia we meet Qeb, an animal trainer, Hor, a painter, Semir, the Babylonian gardener, Stella, Marcia's cousin and mother of six children, Vincentrix, Head of the Druid Guild, Hannibal the dashing fop and Marcia's brother, Paris the Mycenaen sculptor, Tarbel the bodyguard and Padi, the indian soothsayer. Vulcanalia has started and during the festivities Marcus gets knocked out trying to capture the child slave gang by the boatbuilder's step daughter, Zina and is forced to team up with her. Her overly licentious nature causes him some trouble with Claudia, who herself survives half a ton of masonry crashing down as she attempts to find information leading to the whereabouts of her disappeared father. In the meantime we get Todd's favourite plot ploy of having an enigmatic character hovering in the wings watching proceedings whilst agonising over some emotive insanity. This time the person is called `Scarecrow'. Over a period time the original reason for Claudia's arrival in Gaul disappears from the plot and Marcus' hunt for the gang becomes centre stage. Claudia manages to unravel the secret of the Scarecrow, figure out who the killer really is (the culprit invariably has suffered a complete lack of a sense of reality which is a common theme in Todd's culprits - a trend which is making it easier to identify the probable solution in her recent novels) save Marcus again and indulge in a `will they won't they' dance of love with the dashing policeman. Actually, the lack of movement in their relationship is becoming a trifle irritating. Todd needs to move their relationship on. Less of the increasing references to `heaving bosoms' and `dark ringlets of hair' and `sandalwood musk' and more development in the relationship is now needed. Claudia's last installment was definitely the worst so it was highly probable this had to be better. Yet, it's not in the top five by any means and it is increasingly apparent we have another Roman sleuth who doesn't travel well. To date the plots set in Rome are far crisper. Hopefully Claudia will be back in Rome for number twelve but the enigmatic decision by Marcus at the close might scupper this. We'll see...