Bizarre in Byzantium: The John the Lord Chamberlain Mystery Series

John the Eunuch is Lord Chamberlain to Emperor Justinian, ruler of the vibrant Byzantine Empire in the 6th century.

When a treasury official dies under troubling circumstances, John must consult British knights, soothsayers, Cretan ladies, and more to find out who did it—and prevent them from striking again. 

One night in Byzantium, during a thunderstorm, a pillar-saint atop his pillar spontaneously combusts.

Soon, more and more stylites mysteriously burn to death, and no one can figure out why.

In the second installment of the series, set two years after its debut, John the Eunuch must overcome a meddling pagan philosopher and a heretical Christian prophet before he, his emperor, and his city are destroyed. 

A killer is on the loose in the Byzantine court, but between squabbling courtiers, ambitious servants, and two beguiling women who have the imperial guard under their spell, John is having a hard time getting to the bottom of it.

With a child’s life and John’s own position on the line, this may be his most difficult investigation yet—and that’s before he discovers the culprit may not even be human. 

It’s a harsh winter in Constantinople, and the ailing Emperor Justinian seems unlikely to survive it. His ambitious bride-to-be Theodora seems ready to take his place, inundating the imperial court with demands.

When a wealthy philanthropist is found murdered in the Great Church, Justinian suspects a conspiracy against him and his successor. Everyone is a suspect, from the powerful courtiers and churchmen that surround him to beggars on the street outside his palace.

In this prequel to the series, Justinian offers a young slave named John a chance at freedom—if he can get to the bottom of things. 

John the Lord Chamberlain’s elderly servant, Peter, claims to have had a vision in which Peter’s old army friend was murdered. When John goes to investigate, he is surprised to find that Peter was right—at least, about Gregory’s death.

He quickly realizes Peter’s friend is not what he seemed to be, and with a killer on the loose, it’s up to John to figure out who Gregory really was, and fast. 

The Egyptian village of Mehenopolis, at the periphery of the Byzantine Empire, are confounded to find their sheep have begun cutting their own throats.

Fortunately, Emperor Justinian has just the Lord Chamberlain to solve the mystery. John must prod a pretentious local landowner, capricious magician, exiled heretical cleric, itinerant beekeeper, and disgraced charioteer for answers.

Can he solve the mystery before his own troubled past is unearthed?

In the sultry streets of Constantinople’s Copper Market, artisans, beggars, pillar saints, and exiled aristocrats all struggle for their daily bread within view of the Great Palace.

While on business there, John encounters a woman he recognizes from a mosaic on his chamber wall. When that same woman’s bloodied corpse turns up in a subterranean cistern days later, he’s determined to find out who did it.

As he’s about to discover, the killer’s next victim might be the empire itself. 

The great city of Constantinople is aflame as the Nika riots rage through the city, and Emperor Justinian suspects someone is plotting to harness the chaos to overthrow him.

Lord Chamberlain John is once again back on the case, juggling uncooperative informants, ambitious distant relatives while, and a general whose loyalty to the emperor seems to be faltering. 

When Empress Theodora is found dead, Emperor Justinian suspects murder is at play—and if his Lord Chamberlain, John, must find the killer on pain of ending up like the empress.

Most everyone in the court had a reason to want Theodora dead, and a plausible way to do it.

When not even the Pope is above suspicion, can John hope to bring justice to crack the case? Or will his most high-profile mystery be his last. 

Unable to appease a grieving Justinian, Lord Chamberlain John has been exiled to Greece. Felix, Captain of the Palace Guard, is selected to succeed him.

When an Egyptian magician tries to raise the empress from the dead, the ceremony goes awry, and demons vanish into the Byzantine night with one of Constantinople’s holiest relics. As Felix struggles to fill John’s shoes, his job is made more difficult by an apparent plot to convict him of a murder. It’s a battle against dark forces and Constantinople’s own citizens as Felix fights to retrieve the relic seemingly everyone wants to get their hands on. 

John may have been exiled from Constantinople, but that won’t stop him getting entangled in yet another murder to solve. John has somehow found himself back in Greece, not far from where he grew up, but it’s nothing like coming home.

The residents of Megara are hostile to John and his family, none more so than the City Defender who acts as both law enforcer and judge in Megara—and may just be John’s number one suspect.

As John seeks to untangle mystery at the play in his hometown, his investigation will take him to the most perilous and frightening place yet: his own past. 

When former Lord Chamberlain John gets a letter from Felix, now a general in the army, pleading for help, John decides to ignore his exile and risk his life to come to Felix’s aid.

He plans to meet Felix in Rome, where the Byzantine army is fighting against the Goths. When John’s covert entrance into the city is ambushed, he is arrested and brought before the General Diogenes, where he discovers a shocking truth: Felix is missing.

The clock is ticking for John to solve the mystery of his missing friend before Justinian orders John’s execution.