Question by Cathy T: What is this book called please? An ancient Greek murder mystery?
A friend lent me this book several years ago. It has the strangest plot. It’s told from the point of view of a translator, translating an ancient manuscript from (I think) Greek. A previous translator started the work but was kidnapped part way through and never finished. Part way through the book, THIS translator gets kidnapped too. He tells his own story in the footnotes.

The main story is set in ancient Greece or Rome and is a murder mystery. The main character/detective type is a scholarly middle aged man. The victim is a young boy whose heart is torn out, apparently by wild animals, but it turns out it is by the women of a strange cult, who sacrifice him and eat his heart. His mother is the one who killed him, with her bare hands.

Best answer:

Answer by Bookworm
I’m pretty sure this is the book “The Athenian Murders” by Jose Carlos Somoza. You can read more about the book by following the link I’ve provided (the plot synopsis mentions that the second part of the book unfolds in parallel through the footnotes of the translator of the text): http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=852501391&searchurl=kn%3Dtranslator%2Bmurder%2Bmystery%2B%252B%2Bfootnotes%26sts%3Dt%26x%3D0%26y%3D0

Happy reading to you! 🙂

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