Athens, 461 BC: A clever young man named Nicolaos has been hired by the politician Pericles to find and expose an assassin. Ephialtes, the statesman who brought democracy to Athens, has been murdered, and the city is in an uproar. It looks as if someone is attempting to stifle the world’s first democracy in its infancy. Now, Nico walks the mean streets of Classical Athens in search of the killer with the irritating help of his precocious twelve-year-old brother, Socrates. The increasing number of dead witnesses doesn’t make his job any easier. Meanwhile, Nico juggles other pressing concerns—like getting closer (much closer) to Diotima, the intelligent and annoyingly virgin priestess of Artemis. Can he discover a killer and save Athenian democracy without getting on the wrong side of the gods or the city guard?