Alexandria (Falco 19) [Paperback]

For many years I have enjoyed the adventures of Marcus Didius Falco, the streetwise Roman detective created by Lindsey Davis. From his rough origins as an informer in first century A.D. Rome to his slightly more staid middle-class status in the later novels, Falco never fails to entertain. The plots of these novels is always good, with plenty of interesting characters (as well as sinister ones) and no lack of action.
What lifts Miss Davis work above the mainstream of crime fiction is her sense of humor combined with her talent for creating memorable characters.
Falco comes complete with a huge family of complete misfits, most of them instantly recognizable to most readers because we all have an auntie or uncle who is just like that. This particular novel is set in ancient Egypt and is certainly up to the usual high standard. Warmly recommended to wile away a rainy day!

It's recognisable, comfortable and unthreatening enough and it's certainly better than its predecessor. But it is very much the same as before; enough action to last most people a lifetime crammed into a few days and surrounded by a potted precis of a guide book/history of Alexandria. One attraction of the Falco books always used to be the realisation of how sophisticated and, well, modern the first century Romans were. But I must confess that I've stopped believing in the setting. Did people of that era really travel as often as he does to all corners of the known world and continually bump into people they have already met before?

Anyway it's well-enough plotted (although it would be a welcome change for Falco to come up against a crime that wasn't a conspiracy)and moves along quickly enough. And whether it is indeed a groove or a rut it carries us forward to the next instalment, apparently back in Rome.

This is number nineteen in a series of excellent detective stories set in Vespasian's Roman Empire and featuring the informer Marcus Didius Falco. It has perhaps the best opening in the series so far:

"They say you can see the Lighthouse from thirty miles away. Not in the day, you can't."

Informers in ancient Rome were something between a private detective and a government spy: in the cast list at the start of the book Falco now describes himself as "fixer, traveller and playwright."

It is spring AD77. Falco's wife Helena Justina has always wanted to see all of the "Seven Wonders of the World". In a previous book, "See Delphi and Die" Falco and Helena have seen the Temple of Zeus at Olympus. Falco writes that they had also visited Athens on the same trip.

(Pedant alert: there was more than one ancient list of the seven wonders of the world, but neither the traditional list of seven wonders compiled by Philo of Byzantium in 225 BC, nor any of the other contemporary versions I can find, include the Parthenon or anything else at Athens. Never mind.)

When Helena gets an invitation to pay a family visit to Falco's uncle in Alexandria, she realises that accepting the invitation would give her the opportunity to see three more wonders. These are the Colossus of Rhodes (which they saw on the way to Alexandria before the start of this book), the Pharos or Great Lighthouse at Alexandria, and the Great Pyramid of Cheops at Gisa.

The visit will also take in the Great Library at Alexandria, and it turns out that Emperor Vespasian has a little job he wants done which requires a trip to the Great Library. So, despite the fact that Helena is several months pregnant with their third child, Falco accepts the mission and they set off for Alexandria with the family.

But the morning after they arrive in Alexandria, a centurion interrupts their breakfast with news of, to paraphrase the Agatha Christie title, a body in the Great Library. The librarian himself has been found in his office, apparently murdered. As he is known to be the Emperor's fixer, Falco is asked to investigate ...

To judge by the other reviews, some readers feel that this series is losing a bit of its' edge, but personally I am not one of them. I found the humour delightful and apart from the slight clanger about the list of wonders I thought there were a lot of interesting historical details added about the first century empire.

I originally tried this series because I had enjoyed Ellis Peters' "Brother Cadfael" detective stories. Where Cadfael is excellent, Falco is brilliant. Ellis Peters herself (or to use her real name, Edith Pargeter) said of the early books of the series, 'Lindsey Davis continues her exploration of Vespasian's Rome and Marcus Didius Falco's Italy with the same wit and gusto that made "The Silver Pigs" such a dazzling debut and her rueful, self-deprecating hero so irresistibly likeable.'

Funny, exciting, and based on a painstaking effort to re-create the world of the early Roman empire between 70 and 77 AD.

It isn't absolutely essential to read these stories in sequence, as the mysteries Falco is trying to solve are all self-contained stories and each can stand on its own. Having said that, there is some ongoing development of characters and relationships and I think reading them in the right order does improve the experience.

The full Falco series, in chronological order, consists at the moment of:

The Silver Pigs
Shadows in Bronze
Venus in Copper
The Iron Hand of Mars
Poseidon's Gold
Last Act in Palmyra
Time to Depart
A Dying Light in Corduba
Three Hands in the Fountain
Two for the Lions
One Virgin Too Many
Ode to a Banker
A Body in the Bath house
The Jupiter Myth
The Accusers
Scandal taks a Holiday
See Delphi and Die
Saturnalia
Alexandria
Nemesis

I can warmly recommend all of the books in this series published to date.