Bruce Macbain's "The Bull Slayer," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Bull Slayer by Bruce Macbain.

The entry begins:

What is it about the Romans that makes us imagine them speaking with British accents? Presumably, all those fine British actors who have played them over the years in films and on television. So it will come as no surprise that I have cast Derek Jacobi in the leading role in my fantasy film of The Bull Slayer. My sleuth is a historical character, Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), who was a Roman senator, a provincial governor, and a compulsive letter writer. His hundreds of letters illuminate the world he lived in as well as his own personality—tolerant and compassionate, yet at the same time rather vain and fussy, and often perplexed. The Derek Jacobi of I, Claudius and Brother Cadfael would get him exactly right.

In my latest novel, in which Governor Pliny tracks down the murderer of an unpopular tax official, he is assisted by his adjutant, Suetonius. Here I have cast...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Bruce Macbain's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Bull Slayer.

My Book, The Movie: The Bull Slayer.

--Marshal Zeringue