A turbulent frontier province, rotten with corruption and seething with hatred of Rome-a barbarian god whose devotees may include a murderer -a clever and unscrupulous faith healer who knows everyone's secrets-a boy who struggles toward manhood though stricken with the Sacred Disease: these are the elements in a mystery that Pliny, newly appointed governor of Bithynia, confronts when a high Roman official is found murdered on a desolate hillside, miles from the capital. But as Pliny pursues one baffling lead after another, he is being betrayed where he least expects it:his beautiful wife, neglected and lonely in an alien city, falls desperately in love with a handsome young provincial-an affair which threatens to bring not only pain but ruin to Pliny's career. All these threads come together in a surprising and tragic finale.