What prompted you to move the noir genre over a thousand years and thousands of miles away from its American post war roots?

Temporary insanity ... now permanent! Really, just my love of the genre and particularly Raymond Chandler, amplified and encouraged by regular attendance of the Noir City film festival in San Francisco. Eddie Muller mentioned Rome as the first "Noir City" in his Dark City tome, and something clicked. And I wanted to reach people who don't usually like historicals ... who may think of the past as boring, as something quaint and foreign. I wanted to show them that it can be immediate and visceral and exciting and raw--like any contemporary thriller. So much so that you forget you're reading "history." And ancient Rome and twentieth century America are similar in so many ways...

Mud and pig excrement squelch between the readers toes when Arcturus strides through the dark wet streets of 83 Londinium. How did a nice classics scholar like you end up in a place like that, and what kind of research did you have to do to take the reader with you?

My undergraduate degree emphasis was archaeology, and archaeologists actually like mud and pig excrement! Seriously, one of the challenges of researching the Arcturus series, like anything else, is accuracy. Scholarship is all about blowing holes in other people's theories and plugging them with your own; one thing you learn quickly is to examine the primary evidence for yourself and make an argument. The second thing you learn is that not much is absolute. You can have archaeological evidence that contradicts written evidence--happens all the time. So what do you use for your fiction, your version of history? I eliminate the impossible, try to present the probable, and if necessary, settle for the merely possible. Also, the everyday lives of common people are never as well documented as those of the wealthy classes, so I also rely on comparative evidence and a lot of common sense! Sometimes what you're reading is actually a well-researched theory of mine, particularly in the sequel to Nox Dormienda called Maledictus.

What's next for Arcturus and his sarcastic freedman sidekick Bilicho?

Maledictus (Cursed) is the second book of the series. Set in Aquae Sulis--today the resort town of Bath--Arcturus investigates the murder of a professional curse-writer whose curses apparently came true. Ancient cult was one of my specialties in college, and the whole idea of curses as psychological law enforcement really fascinates me. Romans could hire someone to scrawl all kinds of dire wishes on lead tablets, roll them up, and throw them in sacred areas (like the Aquae Sulis springs) or graves. The thought is that a thief, finding out that he was cursed for stealing someone's bath robe, would return it to the temple. So the book deals with all kinds of fun stuff - curses, ghosts, murder. We're hoping to see the series picked up by a larger publisher - Five Star is wonderful in many ways, but we'd like the series to move forward with better distribution. As for Bilicho, one of my family members is waiting for the book to come out so she can start a fan club for him. In fact, I may be cursed if I don't write a stand-alone Bilicho short story

And what's next for you?

Before I make revisions on Maledictus, I'm finishing up a very dark novel set in 1940 San Francisco. I've been spending a lot of time in Chinatown, doing research. This book has me by the throat right now; it's a compelling era, and a compelling story. Completely different style. Darker than my Roman noir ... more like noir noir!

What's the last book you finished, the book you're currently reading, and the next book on your list? What's the one book you would re-read if you had time?

Well, I can't read fiction when I'm deep into a book of my own. Too much influence. So I'm reading The Century of the Detective, which is a classic history of forensics. The last non-fiction book I finished was probably Good Life in Hard Times: San Francisco in the '20s and '30s. I have so little time these days, my reading is mainly for research. I've got a lot of books waiting on my TBR pile, including some advance reading copies: Bill Cameron's Chasing Smoke, Laura Benedict's Calling Mr. Lonelyhearts, Jennie Bentley's Fatal Fixer-Upper. At the moment, if I could re-read one novel, it would probably be Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. 

Contributing editor Rebecca Cantrell sold her house, quit her high tech job, and moved to Hawaii to write a novel. Her first novel, A TRACE OF SMOKE, starts a mystery series set in Berlin in the 1930s. It will be released in May 2009. As of this writing, she lives in Hawaii with her husband and son.