“You’ve heard of the Bull of Mithros, no doubt? Just a small thing, not much bigger than your fist, all ebony and gold. An object so beautiful, they say it lit a fire in all who touched it. Those who’d had it in their hands, all said how hard it was to give it back. It created a lust in them, to keep it for themselves. Then it was stolen. Within days of being found, it was gone, pouf! Vanished...”

 

In the heat of summer, the languid calm of the Greek island of Mithros is broken by the unorthodox arrival of a mysterious stranger who has been involved in a fight on a boat and then thrown overboard in the bay. Lacking money or identification, he is forced for a while to remain on Mithros with a group of young soldiers on a military base. But is he truly a stranger? To some, his face seems familiar.

 

The arrival of the investigator Hermes Diaktoros, intrigued himself by the island's fabled bull, coincides with the stranger’s sinister disappearance. When Hermes discovers the victim of a violent and mysterious death, it soon becomes clear that the bull of Mithros may only be the least of the island's shadowy mysteries. As Hermes sets about solving the complex puzzle of who is guilty and who is innocent, he uncovers a brutal unsolved crime committed several years before. Although apparently forgotten, the crime may not yet have been forgiven and Hermes soon untangles a web of secrets, unspoken loyalties and family feuds.

 

‘Absorbing and beautifully written and reveals the savage, superstitious reality behind the pretty façade that is all that most of us know of any Greek island.’ Literary Review

‘Diaktoros is a delight. Half Poirot, half deus ex machina, but far more earth-bound than his first name suggests, the portly detective has an other-worldly, Marlowesque incorruptibility as he waddles through the mean olive groves.’ The Guardian