The Cybelene Conspiracy, Albert Noyer
The Cybelene Conspiracy, Albert Noyer
List: $42.99 | Sale: $30.10
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The Cybelene Conspiracy

Author: Albert Noyer

Narrator: Fleet Cooper

Unabridged: 11 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/11/2012


Synopsis

A eunuch archpriest and an unscrupulous senator smuggle products from China to Italy that will change the course of Western history. Surgeon Getorius Asterius, his wife Arcadia, the eunuch archpriest of a pagan fertility cult, the female head of a heretical Arian church, and an ambitious senator in league with a Chinese merchant: these are the prime movers in this mystery set in Ravenna, Italy, in A.D. 440. When Getorius is summoned to examine the castrated body of a youth found by Thecla in her Arian church, who is the sobbing “Vestal Virgin” nearby? Why is the senator smuggling counterfeit Western coins to the Eastern Empire, and contraband Chinese products back to Ravenna? Thecla’s coded message leads to a secret tunnel and the sinister temple of Cybele, whose devotees are self-mutilated eunuchs. In a stunning climax, the conspirators try to escape Ravenna, planning to sell one product in Egypt, but failing to recognize the far more deadly nature of the other.

About Albert Noyer

Albert Noyer, an artist and art historian, lives in New Mexico and has previously published two other 5th century mysteries, The Saint’s Day Deaths and The Secundus Papyrus. The Cybelene Conspiracy is the second novel in his A Getorius and Arcadia Mystery trilogy.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lance on May 15, 2014

This series of books is a breath of fresh air. While the story its self is nothing amazing, the author's ability to bring the reader in the world of the Western Roman empire in the 5th century AD, is just sensational. The characters are great too; there is the evil senator, the good doctor, strange......more

Goodreads review by Nav on October 19, 2020

Doesn't shy away from bodily functions, though that's not so surprising given the husband/wife team that make up the protagonists are physicians. I don't know what it was, but I just wasn't feeling it: There's a cult and secret gladiators and smuggling and all kinds of elements that should make this......more

Goodreads review by Scot on June 13, 2015

If I had it to do over, I would have started with the first book in this series (this is the second). This text referred back often enough to what happened in the first book that I basically know that entire story now—kind of like when a poorly made movie trailer reveals so much of the plot that all......more

Goodreads review by Julian on April 28, 2014

Come, come! Some of the other review(er)s are too harsh! This is not fine writing, and the research is not worn lightly; in fact, yes, there's much to mock - but it's an interesting and neglected period, and the author does his best to animate it in a way that might have been better done by others, b......more

Goodreads review by Kees on May 29, 2012

Not the world's greatest detective, but a very interesting evocation of the late roman empire in the west.......more