When Pegasus, racing mega-star and lead driver of the Whites faction, is found stabbed to death in the alleyway beside Renatius's wineshop, Marcus Corvinus is already on site. The local District Watch -- croked to a man -- claim that the killer's motive was simmple theft, but Corvinus knows it wasn't.

Tracking the murderer down with the often-unwilling help of his wife Perilla takes him deep into the murky world of Roman chariot-racing with all its secrets, skuldruggeries and scams; and his task is not made any easier by the fact that in the process he has a lovesick major-domo, an invisible dagger and Mount Etna to contend with.