Flavia Albia's day-old marriage is in trouble - her new husband may be permanently disabled and
they have no funds. So when Palace officials ask her to help expose a plotter in their midst
she is obliged to accept their commission. The plot could not be bigger. Ever since he died in
AD 68 apparently by his own hand Rome has been haunted by reports that the Emperor Nero is in
fact very much alive and about to return to claim his throne. Two Nero pretenders have emerged
in the East and met grisly fates. But now as the Emperor Domitian whose tyrannical paranoid
reign grows ever more unpopular fights a war in faraway Dacia there emerges a far more
sinister contender. What's more the rumour is that this false Nero is already in Rome. Plunged
into the conspiracy Flavia must infiltrate the house of the Parthians who have smuggled in
this new impostor negotiate with spies dodge the assassins sent by the Palace traitor and
somehow cope with her stricken husband. Can she succeed before the impostor is revealed? Or
will Rome once more be plunged into civil war?
