The first in the ‘Empress of Rome’ series, Wolves is set in Rome between the years 44 BC and 18 AD – a period that covers the civil war resulting from Julius Caesar’s death and the consolidation of the empire by the first emperor, Augustus, and his adopted son, Tiberius.

The ‘Empress’ of Rome is Livia, Augustus’s wife, and a psychopath. Roman historians described her as a she-demon who would let nothing get in the way of assuring her blood line ruled Rome. Writers from Livy to Robert Graves have delighted in her antics; Graves’ novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God single-handedly made Ancient Rome sexy in the 1930s, and the BBC TV dramatisation of his books (1976) made household names of John Hurt and Derek Jacobi.

Devenish takes Den of Wolves a step further than Graves, who explored Livia’s motives, but was forced to stay within the moral codes of his period. Devenish lets loose. Narrated by the slave Iphicles, loyal only to Livia, Wolves focuses on the relationships between Rome’s powerful women, their vendettas, murders, and the graphic sexual manipulations (Spanish fly, anyone?) that see Livia claw her way to the top of the Roman pile over the corpses of unsuspecting relatives.

Those who have read Graves and/or Livy will savour what Devenish has done with the material – conjured a graphic world of terror, superstition and death. Since he also writes for TV, perhaps we will see his version of this tantalising tale on the small screen sometime soon. Let’s hope so.

Den of Wolves by Luke Devenish. Bantam Books, RRP $32.95.