sentences:  Flavia is disturbed when her father Marcus starts talking about her betrothal and insisting that she should stop running around Ostia playing detective with her unconventional friends.She blames her father's change of attitude on his new ladylove, a widowed woman named Cartilia Poplicola, and is determined to prove that she is a fortune-hunter, a witch, or even a murderess.Several signs, including a dream, make Flavia believe that following a trail guided by the twelve labours of Hercules will lead her to the truth.