Polydektos was once a great general, the pride of the Athenian people.

Now, after the death of his son Socos in battle, he has fallen into a life of debauchery. Spending his nights his two young lovers Talaemenes and the slave girl Gala.

After a night of drinking, Polydektos returns to this family villa to find everyone inside has been slaughtered. His wife and daughter have been dismembered in their own beds.

Polydektos's own nephew accuses him of the murder of his family, and he and his young lover Talaemenes have to stand trial for their very lives.

Polydektos with the help of his old friend Sokrates must figure out the riddle of his wife and daughter's strange murders. To clear his own name and get bloody revenge for their deaths.

But will that answer bring him peace, or open up new wounds?
Alexander Arrowsmith has had a lifelong fascination with Ancient Greece; its myths and its culture. It is a country he loves and has visited on many occasions. This the first in his series of historical crime novels set in those times.

(Originally published as Pillars of Blood)