The much loved, bestselling Falco series reissued with new jacket artwork
Lindsey Davis has written over twenty historical novels, beginning with The Course of Honour. Her bestselling mystery series features laid-back First Century detective Marcus Didius Falco and his partner Helena Justina, plus friends, relations, pets and bitter enemy the Chief Spy. After an English degree at Oxford University Lindsey joined the Civil Service, but became a professional author in 1989. Her books are translated into many languages and have been dramatized on BBC Radio 4. Her many prizes include the Premio Colosseo, awarded by the Mayor of Rome 'for enhancing the image of Rome', the Sherlock award for Falco as Best Comic Detective and the Crimewriters' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement. For more information, please visit www.lindseydavis.co.uk.
With the passing of Ellis Peters, the title Queen of the Historical
Whodunnit is temporarily vacant. Lindsey Davis is well suited to
assume it - and she is funnier than Peters ... Davis' books make
old Rome sound fun ... it is all so enjoyable
*The Times*
The cast of characters is as various, corrupt, nasty and gnarled as
the best of Dickens, described with similar scope and loving
attention
*Mail on Sunday*
Highly readable, funny and colourful.
*TLS*
Splendid ... mystery, pace and wit
Lindsey Davis doesn't merely make history come alive - she turns it
into spanking entertainment, and wraps it around an intriguing
mystery. She is incapable of writing a dull sentence
In his latest engrossing case (following A Time to Depart, 1997), ancient Rome's preeminent sleuth, Marcus Didius Falco, explores political skulduggery that has a decidedly modern ring. After Chief Spy Anacrites is attacked and left for dead on the same night one of his agents is killed, Falco must untangle a knot of patrician Roman politics that winds from palace to province and encompasses economic malfeasance that might reach even to the Emperor. Under the aegis of Vespasian's Chief Clerk Laeta, Falco connects the assassins to the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica. Tracing the group to Spain, Falco uncovers a plot with roots in Rome to form a cartel. The villains seem evident early, but the labyrinthine means Falco must employ to thwart them keep readers absorbed. As engaging and wryly insouciant as ever, Falco holds to his tested methodology of stirring up trouble to see what happens, while this time worrying about Helena Justina, his pregnant lover. The moments of high humor‘including a scrimmage among a dog, a chicken and an ex-gladiator‘are tempered by a sense that this is the beginning of the end for Rome and that Falco is doing all that one man can to hold off the night. Davis delivers another fast-moving narrative that makes ancient Rome feel as real as the streets of New York or L.A. (Jan.)
With the passing of Ellis Peters, the title Queen of the Historical
Whodunnit is temporarily vacant. Lindsey Davis is well suited to
assume it - and she is funnier than Peters ... Davis' books make
old Rome sound fun ... it is all so enjoyable * The Times *
The cast of characters is as various, corrupt, nasty and gnarled as
the best of Dickens, described with similar scope and loving
attention * Mail on Sunday *
Highly readable, funny and colourful. * TLS *
Splendid ... mystery, pace and wit
Lindsey Davis doesn't merely make history come alive - she turns it
into spanking entertainment, and wraps it around an intriguing
mystery. She is incapable of writing a dull sentence
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