A wry and witty new series from one of Britain's best mystery writers. In AD 60, Olussa is recruited as a reluctant spy by the tax collector Procurator Catus Decianus, and is despatched to the Iceni territories on a spurious mission to estimate their wealth for tax purposes. He arrives just in time to hear that the Iceni king has died and his widow, Boadicea, has been elected Queen. But Catus and a force of 'Special Police' arrive to strip the Iceni of all their wealth - for Roman law doesn't recognize the legitimacy of the widow's claims. In the course of this brutal seizure, Boadicea is publicly flogged and her two daughters raped. Olussa is mistakenly thought to have tried to protect them and finds himself in the Iceni camp rather than the Roman one as Boadicea mobilizes her entire tribe and goes on the warpath...