When the battered body of a young woman is discovered on a remote Greek island, the local police are quick to dismiss her death as an accident. Then a stranger arrives, uninvited, from Athens, announcing his intention to investigate further. His methods are unorthodox, and he brings his own mystery into the web of dark secrets and lies. Who has sent him, on whose authority is he acting, and how does he know of dramas played out decades ago?
Idyllic but remote, the Greek island of Thiminos seems untouched and untroubled by the modern world. So when the battered body of a young woman is discovered at the foot of a cliff, the local police - governed more by archaic rules of honor than by the law - are quick to close the case, dismissing her death as an accident. Then a stranger arrives, uninvited, from Athens, announcing his intention to investigate further into the crime he believes has been committed. Refusing to accept the woman's death as an accident or suicide, Hermes Diaktoros sets out to uncover the truths that skulk beneath this small community's exterior. Hermes's methods of investigation are unorthodox, and his message to the islanders is plain - tell the truth or face the consequences. Before long, he's uncovering a tale of passion, corruption and murder that entangles many of the island's residents. But Hermes brings his own mystery into the web of dark secrets and lies - and as he travels the rugged island landscape to investigate, questions and suspicions arise amongst the locals. Who has sent him to Thiminos, and on whose authority is he acting? And how does he know of dramas played out decades ago? Rich in images of Greece's beautiful islands and evoking a life unknown to most outsiders, this wonderful novel leads the reader into a world where the myths of the past are not forgotten and forbidden passion still has dangerous consequences.
ENVY, REVENGE AND RETRIBUTION IN THE THRILLING NEW INSTALMENT OF THE MYSTERIES OF THE GREEK DETECTIVE SERIES My first question must be, why do you want no investigation? If some malicious person has robbed you - as you believe - of your precious sight, why do you not want that person caught, tried and punished for their crime? A jilted bride weeps on an empty beach, a local doctor is attacked in an isolated churchyard - trouble has come at a bad time to Morfi, just as the backwater village is making headlines with a visit from a government minister. Fortunately, where there's trouble there's Hermes Diaktoros, the mysterious fat man whose tennis shoes are always pristine and whose methods are always unorthodox. Hermes must solve a brutal crime, thwart the petty machinations of the town's ex-mayor and pour oil on the troubled waters of a sisters' relationship - but how can he solve a mystery that not even the victim wants to be solved'...
It is winter in the mountains of Greece and as the snow falls in the tiny village of Vrisi a coffin is unearthed and broken open, revealing some unexpected remains to the astonished mourners gathered at the graveside. In a village where gossip flows like ouzo, the discovery in the grave sets tongues wagging and heads shaking. But when a body is found buried beneath the fallen snow in the shadow of the shrine of St Fanourios (the patron saint of lost things), it seems the truth, behind both the body and the coffin may be far stranger than the villagers' wildest imaginings. Hermes Diaktoros, drawn to the mountains on an affair of the heart, finds himself embroiled in the mysteries of Vrisi, as well as the enigmatic last will and testament of Greece's most admired modern poet. The Whispers of Nemesis is a story of desperate measures and dark secrets, of murder and immortality, and of pride coming before the steepest of falls.
In graphic novel form, tells the story of Eucles, the Athenian messenger who, in 490 B.C., ran twenty-seven miles from Sparta to Athens, preventing the fall of Greece to the Persian Empire.
Ultimately, irony appears to be a term with no definitive meaning, the product of a critical enterprise that over time identified particular literary devices and perspectives a irony."--BOOK JACKET.
The messenger who reports important action that has occurred offstage is a familiar inhabitant of Greek tragedy. A messenger informs us about the death of Jocasta and the blinding of Oedipus, the madness of Heracles, the slaughter of Aigisthos, and the death of Hippolytus, among other important events. Despite its prevalence, this conventional figure remains only little understood. Combining several critical approaches—narrative theory, genre study, and rhetorical analysis—this lucid study develops a synthetic view of the messenger of Greek tragedy, showing how this role illuminates some of the genre's most persistent concerns, especially those relating to language, knowledge, and the workings of tragic theater itself. James Barrett gives close readings of several plays including Aeschylus's Persians, Sophocles' Electra and Oedipus Tyrannus, and Euripides' Bacchae and Rhesos. He traces the literary ancestry of the tragic messenger, showing that the messenger's narrative constitutes an unexplored site of engagement with Homeric epic, and that the role illuminates fifth-century b.c. experimentation with modes of speech. Breaking new ground in the study of Athenian tragedy, Barrett deepens our understanding of many central texts and of a form of theater that highlights the fragility and limits of human knowledge, a theme explored by its use of the messenger.
In ancient Athens, the great philosopher applies logic to a lethal crime—in the “eminently enjoyable” first novel in a historical mystery series (Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse Mysteries). Young Stephanos is desperate to save his family’s honor by proving in the Athenian court that his exiled cousin is not guilty of shooting an arrow into a prominent patrician. For help, he turns to his old teacher—the cunning and clever thinker known as Aristotle. It will all lead up to a tense public trial in which Stephanos must draw on the rhetorical skills he’s learned from his eccentric, brilliant mentor, in this novel filled with suspense, humor, and historical detail—the first in a series of “witty, elegant whodunits” (Times Literary Supplement). “[An] unusually authentic Ancient-Greece murder tale.”—Kirkus Reviews “Doody brings the Athens of 322 BC to life with skill and verve…wonderfully plotted.”—Publishers Weekly
"The true essence of a community is its people, the ordinary folks and families who comprise a town's fabric, its heart, and its soul. The spirit of any town is reflected in the lives, the stories, and the lore of people who live or have lived there - the young and the old, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the prominent and the common. Together they become an amalgam that we call our hometown. In the voices of people who grew up here, Growing Up in Athens brings you the essence of this one small town nestled in the hills of Southeastern Ohio. Through memories, they recount hijinks that will make you laugh aloud and events that will bring a few tears. Most assuredly, there are stories that will spark your own hometown memories."--Page 2 of cover.
"This book investigates the transformation of the Tragic Messenger, traditionally a minor supporting character in Greek drama who brought news from off stage, into one of the leading acting roles in ancient drama. It examines the features of Messenger speeches which made them attractive acting roles, reviews the Tragic Messenger in vase paintings, and analyzes the distribution of acting roles in the extant fifth-century tragedies. The technique of masked actors playing multiple roles in the same drama permitted 'metatheatrical' linkages between these acting roles. When these linkages involved Euripides' very vivid Messenger speeches, they allowed the Tragic Messenger to become an indispensable and stereotypical part of the drama. This was not only important in the development of the tragic genre itself, but may also have led to the stock role of the Running Slave in comedy."--BOOK JACKET.
