The Corpus Conundrum: A Third Case from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger — Albert A. Bell Jr.

While out hunting, Pliny finds a man's body. He appears lifeless, but Pliny cannot find a cause of death. He locks the body in a stable, but in the morning the body is gone. Strangers appear at Pliny's door, claiming to be the man's children. One sings siren songs and claims his “father” is immortal. Another may be an empusa, a shape-shifting, blood-drinking monster. Bodies pile up: a fifteen year old murder, a faceless man floating in the bay, and the “lifeless immortal,” this time with his throat cut. Was he killed for his blood? Pliny and Tacitus must discover how the murders are connected to each other and to Pliny's nemesis Marcus Aquilius Regulus.