In AD 76, at a time when the Church counted only a few thousand believers rather than untold millions, the first elected Pope was brutally murdered, and the very survival of the faith was at stake. But killing a man was not even a crime according to Roman law! Desiderata, professional ‘seeker of justice’, was entrusted with this daunting challenge: how to solve a murder case in a world where homicide is seen as a purely private matter.

In 1992 Daisy Hayes had inherited Bottomleigh House and was struggling to keep it afloat financially. Then she got a letter from an archaeologist, asking her to help make sense of a mysterious message that had just been dug up in Rome. Time to hook up again with Morag, her deaf friend from the ‘project’ in 1964, and to go back to the Eternal City. In AD 64, after Feli’s death, Desiderata had scores to settle and a ‘twin sister’ to bury. Her new friends the Christians gave her sanctuary, but her relationship with them was a bit strained. Soon the ‘Community’ and their blind protégée had to part company. Eventually, assisted by her uncle Balbus, ex-centurion of the X Fretensis legion, she found a path out of her troubles, and helped him search for a stolen treasure. So, 1928 years later, Daisy went looking for a gold cache from antiquity, hoping to solve a new mystery, and even more to reconnect with Desi, her soulmate from ancient Rome.

The last days that Daisy Hayes spent in Rome in 1964 were quite exciting. She and Father Contini went back to the crypt and made some disturbing discoveries. Not about Desiderata herself, but about the archaeologist who had investigated the place in the thirties. The quest now led them to the German town of Trier, where they teamed up again in the fall of that same year to continue their research. In AD 67 things were looking good for Desi and the Pomponius family in their beautiful domus: they lived like princes. But as her friends the Christians went through yet another period of persecution, the blind young woman found it hard to decide on who’s side she wanted to be and what she intended to do with her life. Would she ever find love? So both she and Daisy ended up trying to grapple with the greatest riddle of all: “Who are you really, Desiderata?” And what’s more, did she become a Christian in the end?

In AD 79 the emperor Vespasian was dying and some prophetess was announcing the end of the world. Meanwhile Desiderata had to deal with a fresh criminal plot from her old enemy Numa. You’d think that things couldn’t get any worse, but that was counting without Mount Vesuvius literally blowing its top above Pompeii. What on earth were our blind ‘seeker of justice’, her deaf husband Simplex, and uncle Balbus doing there that summer, a true case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time? It’s a complicated story, but as it happened, they had not one, but three equally compelling reasons to visit Campania and pursue their investigations in this small, provincial, but nevertheless fashionable town. Little did they know what surprises awaited them. Not only did they have to face their arch-enemy in a blood-curdling showdown, but they had to confront the horrors of a natural disaster of unprecedented proportions. Both events would take them to the brink of their instincts for survival, and ultimately turn some of their assumptions upside down.

Written 75 years ago, Desiderata achieved fame as the anthem of the sixties' hippie-dom - the subject of many millions of posters and handbills - and famously narrated by Les Crane in his 1971 song version of the poem. Over the years Desiderata has provided a kind and gentle philosophy, a refreshing perspective on life's bigger picture. This new presentation of the prose poem will bring it to the attention of a new generation. The origins of Desiderata were, for many years, shrouded in mystery. Once thought to have originated from St. Paul's Church in Baltimore, Maryland in the seventeenth century it was later discovered that American poet Max Ehrmann had written it in 1927. Presented in a refreshingly modern design, Desiderata will appeal to a younger generation looking to find the meaning of life, and to baby-boomers who'll recall Desiderata from their youth.

Celebrating the scholarship of one of the leading lawyers of the common law, Andrew Ashworth, the essays in this volume address fundamental questions of principle and value in criminal law, criminal process, human rights, sentencing, and punishment. This is a major contribution to contemporary debates about criminalization and punishment.