Three for a Letter
By Mary Reed and Eric Mayer
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
It's 539 AD, and John the Lord Chamberlain finds his investigations hampered by squabbling courtiers, servants with social ambitions, an eccentric host, and an egotistic inventor—not to mention a herd of prophesying goats and a protective whale. The Mithran Anatolius and the excubitor captain Felix only add to John's worries when they fall under the spell of two ambitious women. Can the trio avoid Theodora's wrath as they work to protect a child and stop a heartless killer? Does the solution lie within the villa where all have assembled, back in Constantinople, or in some other world altogether?
Read more from Mary Reed
One for Sorrow Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Three for a Letter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Divorce For Dummies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSix for Gold Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two for Joy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder in Megara Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four For A Boy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five For Silver Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ten for Dying Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Seven For a Secret Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nine for the Devil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Empire for Ravens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEight for Eternity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hocking Hills Day Hikes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Three for a Letter
Related ebooks
The Saltergate Psalter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Face Down Collection Three: Face Down Mysteries, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Holywell Dead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deadlier than the Pen Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In The Presence of Evil Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Anchoress of Chesterfield: John the Carpenter (Book 4) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Scent of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Give Up the Dead: A Mediaeval Mystery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Plague Road Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder, Sweet Murder Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Cold Cruel Winter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man Upon the Stair: A Mystery in Fin de Siecle Paris Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Rare Benedictine: The Advent of Brother Cadfael Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Year of the Gun Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreen Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHungry Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Last Nocturne: A Mystery Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Murder too Soon, A Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shapeshifter's Lair Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5King's Spies, The Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brother's Blood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder in the Queen's Wardrobe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhere Death Delights Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dead Image: A Detective Sergeant Best Mystery 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Leper's Return: A Knights Templar Mystery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Riverwomans Dragon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hocus Girl, The Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summer of Secrets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mangle: A Sage Adair Historical Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSins of a Shaker Summer: A Sister Rose Callahan Mystery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Mystery For You
None of This Is True: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Still Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Short Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pretty Girls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hallowe'en Party: Inspiration for the 20th Century Studios Major Motion Picture A Haunting in Venice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Flight: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pharmacist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Sleep Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder Under a Red Moon: A 1920s Bangalore Mystery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pieces of Her: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5False Witness: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hidden Staircase: Nancy Drew #2 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hunting Party: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life We Bury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Woman in the Library: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in a Blue Dress (30th Anniversary Edition): An Easy Rawlins Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eight Perfect Murders: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dean Koontz: Series Reading Order - with Summaries & Checklist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summit Lake Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone: A Murdery Mystery Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The People Next Door Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finlay Donovan Is Killing It: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Three for a Letter
18 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I thoroughly enjoy John the Eunuch series, even though I've had to read them out of sequence. Now that I have read #1 and #2, I thought I would reread #3 and put things in order. It was just as enjoyable the second time -- perhaps more so. John is such an interesting character, the plot is well developed, and the setting and historical background are first rate.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rating: 3* of five The Book Description: High jinx in the imperial court mixes with lowlife in Constantinople's mean streets..."If the perfect historical mystery is one that uses the past to let us see the present from a new angle, then this is darned close to being the perfect historical mystery."--Booklist (starred review for Two for Joy)It is 539 AD and as the reconquest of Italy draws toward its close, a pair of eight-year old twins descended from the last Ostrogothic king have become valuable pawns in Emperor Justinian's plans to restore the glory of Rome. Unfortunately, during the performance of a play at a banquet honoring the two young diplomatic hostages, death makes an entrance and claims one brother.Then Empress Theodora's favorite mime vanishes and John, Lord Chamberlain to Justinian, is ordered to find both the missing mime and the murderer.In this third John the Eunuch novel, his investigations are hampered by squabbling courtiers, servants harboring social ambitions, an eccentric host, and an egotistic inventor, not to mention the complications posed by a herd of prophesying goats and a protective whale. His friends the Mithran Anatolius and the excubitor captain Felix only add to John's worries when they fall under the spell of two ambitious women. Can the trio avoid Theodora's wrath as they work to protect a child and stop a heartless killer? It is uncertain whether the solution lies within the villa where all have assembled or back in Constantinople--or in some other world altogether. My Review: I was robbed! Hours and hours of my life, robbed from me as John and Anatolius careen from pillar to post and do very little of any interest! I was subjected to the drear and dull prattlings of an eight-year-old with an overactive imagination, a poor sense of self-preservation, and a somewhat appalling callousness! I want those eyeblinks back!Characters are summoned forth, do next to nothing, and vertiginously disappear. Some amazing coincidences are mooted, and then dismissed, and then lo and behold come back again as faits accomplis. Oh the humanity, he said, as the Constantinopolitan Hindenburg burns.So Theodora, Imperial Wench of the First Water, is getting no image burnishment here, and one wonders why the authors don't do more with her. At the moment, she's a cardboard cut-out of a mean girl. My long-term interest in a mystery series is bound up in the characters the author(s) develop for me to invest in and follow with interest. John the Eunuch is interesting, but the other players are becoming tiresome. Reduced by a vastly overcomplicated plot with more coincidences than even Shakespeare would feel comfortable perpetrating on his miserable, long-suffering audiences to broad-strokes walk-ons, Felix (the equivalent of the police lieutenant all detectives know) and Anatolius (well-placed and wealthy young sidekick) come off as boring one-note lech-boys; Hypatia (salvaged serving girl) as a cipher; and Peter (wise old fool/servant to John) as a foolish old man. The suspects, too numerous to enumerate, don't take shape at all. Theodora, see above. Eeeaaarrrgh! So why three stars, with this litany of whinges and bitches? For this line:John did not press {the suspect} further. It had struck to him on more than one occasion that the Christians' rigid insistence on their god's exclusive sway, so at odds with human nature, would finally prove to be their undoing.(p317, hardcover edition)Fifteen hundred years on is a looong finally, but permaybehaps it's coming to be. I live in hope that it is true, that my shining City on a Hill of Jesuslessness is at last in sight.In the meantime, the series bought itself one more shot. One. And it had better count.