Write Out Loud (Reviews and Writing)

“…I was totally unprepared for the ending…”

We’re back with our old friends, the child detectives, and many of their companions. This time we’ve got a classic story: murder victims and a slave-girl who’s in the frame for the crime.

Along the way, Lawrence gives us a whole stack of information about life in Rome ‘through the back door’, as it were. In my book, that’s the best way to teach children history. Let it flow naturally. In this story, we learn about the Roman justice system, how to make speeches, the laws governing freeing slaves, making wills and the horrific story of the massacre at Masada – none of which you’d manage to get a class of kids to have the least bit interest in if you simply tried to drum it into their heads.

But this novel is anything but boring. Solving the mystery lies in learning about these facts and the four detectives have to overcome what seems to us as peculiarities of laws and customs that hinder them from saving their slave-girl friend.

Along the way, as usual, Lawrence continues to build on longer threads such as the burgeoning romance between Flavia (the lead protagonist) and ‘Floppy’ Flaccus who have not yet admitted their feelings even to themselves as yet, let alone each other. The pair are getting ever closer to the inevitable.

Of course, if you’ve read at least a few of the previous books, you may well be guessing that the children (and they are pre-teens though they behave more like older teenagers – everything happened at younger ages in those times) will eventually solve the mystery and save their friend from death by crucifixion. But beware…

I was on a train back from a meeting down in London when I finished this novel and I did not see the ending coming. I wish I had so it would have saved me the embarrassment of weeping like a baby on a crowded train. If you are a fan of the books then this story is going to hit hard, really hard. It is a stroke of genius on the author’s part and she weaves in the mystical aspects of the previous books that I have regularly commented on. This is where it all starts to come together.

This also means that these stories, as we enter the final quarter of the seventeen-book series, have a new impetus, fresh problems to deal with. I have little fear now that the books will go stale as we head towards the end.

The Slave-girl from Jerusalem is an excellent book albeit with the caveats that you need to have read some of the previous books in the series to know the characters well and you need to be prepared for the that fact that not everything ends well. I was totally unprepared for the ending. As someone who invests heavily in characters (when well written) there’s a heaviness in my heart today that is crushing.

My verdict:

Read all the reviews for this series:

• Reflection: The Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence
• The Roman Mysteries I – The Thieves of Ostia by Caroline Lawrence
• The Roman Mysteries II – The Secrets of Vesuvius by Caroline Lawrence
• The Roman Mysteries III – The Pirates of Pompeii
• The Roman Mysteries IV – The Assassins of Rome by Caroline Lawrence
• The Roman Mysteries V – The Dolphins of Laurentum by Caroline Lawrence
• The Roman Mysteries VI – The Twelve Tasks of Flavia Gemina by Caroline Lawrence
• The Roman Mysteries VII – The Enemies of Jupiter by Caroline Lawrence
• The Roman Mysteries VIII – The Gladiators from Capua by Caroline Lawrence
• The Roman Mysteries IX – The Colossus of Rhodes by Caroline Lawrence
• The Roman Mysteries X – The Fugitive from Corinth by Caroline Lawrence
• The Roman Mysteries XI – The Sirens of Surrentum by Caroline Lawrence
• The Roman Mysteries XII – The Charioteer of Delphi by Caroline Lawrence
• The Roman Mysteries XIII – The Slave-girl from Jerusalem by Caroline Lawrence

Social Entrepreneur, educationalist, bestselling author and journalist, D K Powell is the author of the bestselling collection of literary short stories “The Old Man on the Beach“. His first book, ‘Sonali’ is a photo-memoir journal of life in Bangladesh and has been highly praised by the Bangladeshi diaspora worldwide. Students learning the Bengali language have also valued the English/Bengali translations on every page. His third book is ‘Try not to Laugh’ and is a guide to memorising, revising and passing exams for students.

Both ‘The Old Man on the Beach’ and ‘Sonali’ are available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Published by Shopno Sriti Media. The novel,’The Pukur’, was published by Histria Books in 2022.

D K Powell is available to speak at events (see his TEDx talk here) and can be contacted at dkpowell.contact@gmail.com. Alternatively, he is available for one-to-one mentoring and runs a course on the psychology of writing. Listen to his life story in interview with the BBC here.

Ken writes for a number of publications around the world. Past reviewer for Paste magazine, The Doughnut, E2D and United Airways and Lancashire Life magazine. Currently reviews for Northern Arts Review. His reviews have been read more than 7.9 million times.

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