Herbert De Paepe returns to EQMM in our May/June issue with “The Defixio Murders,” another spine-tingling mystery translated from the Dutch by Josh Pachter. Here Herbert discusses how a trip to “The Rome of the North” along with some mysterious artifacts helped inspire this latest piece

My story in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine’s May/June 2026 issue is titled “The Defixio Murders.” Now don’t feel bad if you don’t know what “Defixio” means, because up until last summer, I didn’t either.

Last summer is when I visited the city of Trier in Germany, located just a few hours from Belgium, where I work and live. Trier is the oldest city in Germany, one of the four capitals of the Roman Empire during the Tetrarchy period in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. It’s aptly nicknamed “The Rome of the North,” not because of its size—which is modest—but because of the overwhelming concentration of well-preserved Roman ruins in the very city center. As a history buff, my visit to Trier was long overdue. And I was not disappointed.

One of the most striking archeological sites is Trier’s amphitheater, where gladiators fought fierce beasts, and each other. On the theater grounds, dozens of small lead plates were excavated, inscribed with ancient spells. In Latin, these plates were called “defixiones,” meaning curse plates, thrown into the arena by spectators. When soiled with gladiator blood, the cruel and colorful spells on the plates—often aimed at an unfaithful spouse, a toxic boss or a debtor refusing to pay up—were supposed to come true.

I was so impressed that I got a story idea on the train back home. What if I infused a contemporary serial murder case on the streets of Trier with a whiff of classical Roman mystery, by making the local detectives find a defixio on the body of each of the victims? Wouldn’t that be intriguing?

Veteran crime writer Josh Pachter, who’d already translated several of my earlier stories for the magazine’s ‘Passport to Crime’ department, certainly thought so. He liked the story, translated it and agreed to pitch it to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. But he wasn’t sure about the working title: “Defixio.” Although an enthralling word, he thought it might be too unfamiliar and asked me to come up with a different title. I suggested “Roman Curse,” but that was probably too obvious. Now, using an esoteric word in a title doesn’t have to be an editorial curse, or else a bestselling novel like “The Quincunx” should have been a major flop, which it definitely wasn’t. So Josh came up with “The Defixio Murders,” keeping the cool Latin word (which made me happy), but at the same time making the title instantly appealing to the crime-loving readers of the magazine, whom I hope will enjoy this cursed trip to the blood-soaked streets of The Rome of the North.

Herbert De Paepe is a journalist and fiction writer who lives and works in Ghent, Belgium. He is currently working on his 9th crime novel. His short stories have appeared in EQMM, the short story collection Dutch Treats, and In Tenebris, a Belgian fantasy-fiction magazine.