Ode to a Banker [Paperback]

Lindsey Davis's novels about the Roman informer Falco have always been ingenious in the way she sets up impeccably researched Imperial Roman equivalents of modern worlds and modern crimes. Ode to a Banker is one of the closest of her books to a classic traditional crime novel, in that it deals with a murder in a small enclosed world, with likely suspects whose motives have to be gone through by interrogation and legwork--the first of the bodies is even found in a library. Chrysippus was a banker and a publisher, owner of a minor scriptorium where not especially accurate copies of manuscripts are made by dictation; he is found with the centre rod from a scroll stuffed up his nose. Falco himself is momentarily a suspect--he had a row with Chrysippus who offered to vanity publish Falco's poems--but soon finds himself the official investigator, sub-contracting the job for his friends in the Watch. This is as elegantly picturesque in its portrait of the Emperor Vespasian's crowded metropolis as Davis has ever been; the soap opera of Falco's extended and disreputable family continues apace and amid all the snazzy puzzles, we get a real sense of a lively mind busy at work. --Roz Kaveney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘Fast moving, funny and full of atmosphere’

'One of the best’

‘A superb example…her witty and literate Falco novels are models of the genre’

‘Wonderful, great fun all round’

‘If only all best-sellers were this satisfying. Uniquely entertaining’

'One of the best of the current writers in this field'

'A rollicking narrative . . . this sees its award-winning author in excellent form’

‘A witty satire of publishing and banking with striking contemporary resonace . . . hot, noisy, smelly and full of unforgettable characters’

Aurelius Chrysippus, rich Greek banker and patron of aspiring writers offers to publish the work of Marcus Didius Falco, private informer and spare-time poet. This golden opportunity rapidly palls for Falco when a visit to the Chrysippus "scriptorium" implicates him in a gruesome literary murder.

Lindsey Davis was born in Birmingham but now lives in Greenwich. After an English degree at Oxford she joined the Civil Service but now writes full time.

Poetry should have been safe.

‘Take your writing tablets up to our new house,’ suggested Helena Justina, my elegant partner in life. I was struggling against shock and physical exhaustion, acquired during a dramatic underground rescue. Publicly, the vigiles took the credit, but I was the mad volunteer who had been lowered head first down a shaft on ropes. It had made me a hero for about a day, and I was mentioned by name (misspelled) in the Daily Gazette. ‘Just sit and relax in the garden,’ soothed Helena, after I had rampaged about our tiny Roman apartment for several weeks. ‘You can supervise the bathhouse contractors.’ ‘I can supervise them if they bother to turn up.’ ‘Take the baby. I may come too - we have so many friends abroad nowadays, I ought to work on The Collected Letters of Helena Justina.’ ‘Authorship?’ What - by a senator’s daughter? Most are too stupid and too busy counting their jewellery. None are ever encouraged to reveal their literary skills, assuming they have them. But then, they are not supposed to live with informers either. ‘Badly needed,’ she said briskly. ‘Most published letters are by smug men with nothing to say.’ Was she serious? Was she privately romancing? Or was she just twisting the rope on my pulley to see when I snapped? ‘Ah well,’ I said mildly. ‘You sit in the shade of a pine tree with your stylus and your great thoughts, fruit. I can easily run around after our darling daughter at the same time as I’m keeping a check on a bunch of slippery builders who want to destroy our new steam room. Then I can dash off my own little odes whenever there’s a pause in the screaming and stone-cutting.’ Every would-be author needs solitude and tranquillity. It would have been a wonderful way to pass the summer, escaping from the city heat to our intended new home on the Janiculan Hill - except for this: the new home was a dump; the baby had embarked on a tantrum phase; and poetry led me into a public recital, which was foolish enough. That brought me into contact with the Chrysippus organisation. Anything in commerce that looks like a safe proposition may be a step on the route to grief.