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Gabrilis Kaloyeros is a bee-keeper on the beautiful Greek island of Arcadia. The ruined Temple of Apollo has been in his care for decades, and he has worked to protect it. But when crooked developers take over the island and the value of the land soars, he is persuaded through unscrupulous means to sign away his interest. Hours later he meets a violent, lonely death.
When detective Hermes Diaktoros finds his friend's battered body by a dusty roadside, the police quickly name him the prime suspect. But with rapacious developers threatening Arcadia's most ancient sites, many stand to gain from Gabrilis's death. Hermes resolves to avenge his old friend and find the true culprit, but his methods are, as ever, unorthodox.
As in The Messenger of Athens, Anne Zouroudi tells a spellbinding mystery set in an enchanted place, where the myths of the ancient past intersect with the realities of contemporary life, with deadly results.
"In the end, a deus ex machina more than sleuthing resolves the crime in this lovely paean to the Greek islands." - Publishers Weekly
"With its wonderful premise for a mystery series, this entry captivates. Hermes is a fastidious philosopher, making this perfect book group material. Highly recommended" - Library Journal
"...[A] cracking plot, colourful local characters and descriptions of the hot, dry countryside so strong that you can almost see the heat haze and hear the cicadas - the perfect read to curl up with as the nights draw in." - The Guardian (UK)
"Combined with plotting contrivances and a stagy feel, any lightness of touch... is lost beneath the novel's presiding didactic tone. With neither mischief nor procedural grit, Zouroudi is left with an amiable but somewhat sententious inquisitor whose own pointedly ambiguous provenance is more of an intrigue than the investigations around him." - The Independent (UK)
"This is a fantastic tale of passion, corruption and murder on a remote Greek island. The main characters were wonderfully written." - Woman's Own (UK)
This information about The Taint of Midas was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Anne Zouroudi
Born in rural Lincolnshire in 1959, Anne moved to South Yorkshire at the age of two. Following her education at Sheffield High School for Girls, she went into the IT industry, a career which took her to both New York's Wall Street and Denver, Colorado. In America she began to take seriously her ambition to write fiction, and bought a typewriter for her first short stories.
On returning to the UK, she booked a summer holiday with her sister. The location they chose was a tiny island in southern Greece.
"We arrived at night; there was nothing to see," she recalls. "But the next morning, I opened the shutters of our rented house, and bam! Love at first sight. The brilliant blue sea, the scent of herbs on the breeze, the timelessness of the place… It was the first moment ...
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If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins
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