A review by yaboywillyshakes
A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome by Emma Southon

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

2.25

While there are a handful of chapters where the author evokes the humanity of ancient murder victims and makes a decent argument about the way that murder is constructed as a concept by societies, her absolute disdain for the topic of Rome makes the first half of the book very hard to read. The later chapters are too full of somewhat childish pop culture references (largely Harry Potter, which also gives me pause for other reasons) to make the book relevant to larger audiences, and I was not impressed with the level of research in the last chapter specifically. It felt like the author was cherry picking information to support her own ends, and it felt very shallow in comparison with the preceding chapters.
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