Welcome to the world of Nox Dormienda.
It’s a world where Romans and Brits and everything in between mix uneasily on the muddy Londinium streets, eyes fixed and glazed on the odds for the arena show.
It’s a world where beauty is found in places unexpected, from the rich halls of the governor’s palace to a gleaming torque on an old man’s neck.
It’s a world where a dangerous blonde can interrupt a lunch
and men die on temple altars.
It’s a world where a man who’s looking for something can find it … sometimes without looking at all …
Nox Dormienda is the first of a new kind of historical fiction. Blending the backdrop of first century Roman Britain with the atmosphere of hard-boiled noir, it is a genre sui generis. If you want to learn more, you’ve knocked on the right door.Below you’ll find a brief synopsis, taken from the book jacket. More of the story follows, as Kelli explains the influences that guided the novel. There’s also a list of ten reasons why you should consider buying a copy.
On separate pages, you can read more about Roman Britain, Londinium and Camulodunum, the settings for Nox Dormienda. You’ll also meet the people and characters, learn about their languages and that of the book, and review Arcturus’ medical training. You can discover much more about him, the protagonist-doctor-problem-solver, in his own grouping of related pages. Pithy excerpts from the book are also included.
Open the door and come in. Pull up a basket chair. Grab a grape. It’s getting dark outside …
Synopsis (from the book jacket)
Saturnalia is almost over, but drunks and gamblers aren’t the only denizens of Londinium knocking on the doctor’s door. The winter of 836 a.u.c. (83 A.D.) is cold and bitter. The year’s final exhale will prove to be colder still.
Arcturus—the half-native, half-Roman doctor and occasional problem-solver—has seen much in his thirty-three years. He’s risen—despite not playing the politics game. He is Agricola’s doctor. And Agricola’s friend. And Agricola is the governor of Britannia.
Now, on a frozen December afternoon, he learns the governor is in trouble. The Emperor Domitian has sent a spy to Britannia—a spy carrying papers demanding Agricola’s resignation. It doesn’t make Arcturus any warmer to know that the spy, a Syrian named Vibius Maecenas, is betrothed to the woman who brings him the story. The woman—Gwyna—is as unforgettable as her information.
When Arcturus sends his freedman Bilicho to follow her, he finds himself, hours later, in an underground temple, staring at a shapeless hulk on top the altar. It’s the trussed, dead body of Maecenas, with a gaping hole in place of a throat.
If Arcturus doesn’t find out who murdered him and why, Domitian might think the governor is responsible. The fat, dead Syrian will ignite a civil war, one hot enough to thaw the ice in frozen Britannia.
He has seven days to unravel fact from story, truth from rumor, and motive from murder. He must walk a carnival landscape of fear and uncertainty, strewn with sadistic pimps, drunken whores, well-bred politicians and four more deaths. He’s unsure of everything: how much he can trust Gwyna, how much he can trust the governor, and especially how much he can trust himself.
Nox Dormienda is a nightmare vision of Roman Britain, a lightning-paced historical mystery that blends hard-boiled prose and impeccably researched historical background. Compelling, immediate and classic private-eye storytelling, the book will sting your senses into a visceral past: you’ll hear the crunch of ice on a muddy Roman road, smell the stench of a cheap whorehouse, and down a tired swallow of sun-warmed wine. It is the first novel of a new series and a new genre of mystery fiction: it is Roman Noir.
Thanks for wanting to learn more about Nox Dormienda! I’m Kelli Stanley, your host for this segment. Authors tend to go on too long, drowning interest in a flood of enthusiasm, so I’ll try to keep this short.
What’s it all about? For me, it’s making people feel the past—like a slap in the face or an unexpected kiss—that's what I want writing to do. I’m trying to push the boundaries of what people expect and certainly what they feel from the setting.
Roman Noir is unique. My books are emotionally raw, dark (their humor, like everything else, is character-based, not author-based) and steeped in my own peculiar vision of Roman culture, which is a blend of many years of study combined with a fascination with 30s and 40s noir fiction and films. The two have a lot in common.
As for local color, people curse and make love, eat and talk and sweat and fear in Nox Dormienda. It's more a nightmare of Rome than a dream. At the same time, it’s a very character-driven book. My characters have a life of their own. They usually surprise me. Arcturus, like Philip Marlowe, is a "man good enough for his world and any world," but maybe a little tired of trying to be.
Nox is the first of the Arcturus series, and it’s more about him than anything else. He, in a sense, is the story. As Agricola's doctor—and as a half-native, half-Roman in a suspect and lowly profession—he can fit in nowhere and everywhere. At least, that's how he sees it.
I chose the late first century A.D. for Nox because it’s a rich period, not as defined as the late first century B.C., but filled with satirical wit and political machinations. Juvenal and Martial were on hand to lampoon anyone who got in their way. I wanted to set the book in my favorite province (Britannia)—and also show how far Rome could extend a hand. The provinces, in many ways, were far from provincial. As far as sources are concerned, Tacitus wrote a very compelling monograph about his father-in-law Agricola, and that became the primary platform for the book, along with Dio Cassius and Suetonius. Pliny the Elder, Theophrastus and Dioscorides contributed medical research.
Other direct influences are the poetry of Catullus (he wrote the line I took as the title), a spot of Virgil, and a lot of noir. Mostly Chandler—my favorite writer. The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity (novel and film), Farewell, My Lovely, and Gilda (film) all helped shape the final result.
Nox Dormienda is first-person narration, hard-boiled. You’ll also find plenty of noir themes: corruption, despair, decay, obsession, squalor and sexuality. There is also loyalty, friendship, honor, and love. Amour fou? That’s for you to decide.
There is plenty of wry gallows humor. And redemption. Without that, there’s not much for me to write about that you can’t buy for a quarter in the evening edition.
Ultimately, I hope it entertains you. That’s what it’s meant to do. To take you almost two thousand years away and yet feel like yesterday. To involve you, stimulate you, wrap you up and keep you safe while you walk some mean and muddy streets with a man you’ll come to like.
Enjoy the world of Nox Dormienda. And look … it’s all around you.
Top Ten Reasons to Pre-Order Nox Dormienda
1. Excellent investment. Order now, and you’ll get a first printing of the first edition.
2. Hardcover. Nox Dormienda is written to be re-read. And buying a hardcover edition lets you do that without cracking anybody’s spine.
3. Cocktail conversation. When everyone around you is talking about “Roman Noir”, you can say you knew about it first.
4. Maledictus. You can start to think about the sequel.
5. Learn Latin. Learn Latin again or for the first time! Start with Nox Dormienda, then try Bilicho’s page.
6. Trip to Britain. On your next trip to London or Colchester, you can see the graves Arcturus visits in the book.
7. Newsletter and Club. Sign up for the Auxilia Arcturi, join the club, and get a low number you can show your friends (see #3, above).
8. Roman cooking. You might become the new Rachel Ray or Jacques Pepin of ancient Roman cuisine. See Venutius for details.
9. Fantastic entertainment value. For $25.95, it’s much cheaper than a movie and will last much longer. Popcorn not included.
10. Free medical lessons! Reading about Roman medicine is cheaper than an internship at Johns Hopkins. And if you sign up for the newsletter, you get something for free (see number 7.) Plus, all the cool kids are doing it.
