Durante más de medio siglo, el viejo apicultor Gabrillis Kaloyeros ha custodiado las hermosas ruinas del Templo de Apolo. Pero la especulación inmobiliaria incrementa el valor de la tierra y alguien lo convence para que renuncie a su propiedad. Pocas horas después, muere de manera violenta.
Cuando Hermes Diaktoros encuentra el cuerpo maltrecho de su amigo en una cuneta, la policía lo considera el principal sospechoso. Sin embargo, son los promotores más codiciosos que amenazan los antiguos yacimientos de la isla de Arcadia quienes resultarían más beneficiados con la muerte de Gabrilis. Hermes decide vengar a su viejo amigo y encontrar al verdadero culpable, aunque sus métodos son, como siempre, poco ortodoxos...

I'm sort of sorry to see the "deadly sins series" noted on the front cover. But this was a good installment. I had a little trouble keeping the character's names straight but had them worked out by the end of the book. ( )

For a synopsis, see elsewhere; I want merely to reassure readers that the fat man is back, in all his glory, and this time it's personal. The bad end badly, the good (what few of them there are) end well - just as it should be. Anne Zouroudi paints a powerful picture of the gnawing miasma that is avarice, poisoning all about it. Only the Greek detective can bring an end to the present trouble in paradise. ( )

I've been going through my to-be-read shelves and finding the next books in series that I've started and unintentionally abandoned. This second book in Anne Zouroudi's Seven Deadly Sins series set in Greece certainly fits that criteria. The first book, The Messenger of Athens, introduced me to Hermes Diaktoros, who is far from being your usual detective. Someone has described him as "half Poirot, half deus ex machina," and it's true. He's a character to enjoy, from the way he investigates crimes to keeping those white shoes of his absolutely spotless to finding out the next thing he's going to pull out of his bag of tricks. Hermes also waxes philosophical at times: "He was considering the tangled threads of life; why was it sometimes so, he thought, that the righting of a wrong did not settle the scales, but created only crueler injustices?" This is something I've pondered in many of the mysteries I've read.

The mystery has two main threads: the primary one being who killed Gabrilis Kaloyeros, which is intertwined nicely with the story of two policemen, the veteran Gazis and the rookie Petridis. This cozy-with-a-twist not only gives readers an intriguing main character and a strong mystery to solve but it also gives a real feel for Greece-- the changes being made to lure the tourist dollar as well as how ancient myths can intersect with contemporary life.

This is definitely a series that I should not have neglected. I'm looking forward to following Hermes Diaktoros to his next case. ( )

(Fiction, Mystery, Series #2)

I wasn’t sure what to expect of my first meeting with Hermes Diaktoros, but I was eager to make his acquaintance so when Netgalley offered these first three in the series, I jumped.

The series is set in Greece at an undetermined time – but in very real settings that make little or no use of modern technology. That could be mid-20th century, or it could be present day in an isolated rural area that is not up to date. To further confuse things, Hermes’ methods are very old-fashioned and a little bit unorthodox, and there is the tiniest bit of magical realism.

This series has everything: a setting that the reader longs to be part of, a likeable inscrutable protagonist, and good mysteries. There are seven books in this series, each dealing with one of the traditional seven deadly sins.

All of these books were excellent, although it is the story in the third one that has stayed with me three years later. There’s always justice in Zouroudi’s books although not always in the form you might expect.

I’m glad to be reminded to return to this series.

4½ stars ( )