Amazon.co.uk Review
Falco is back from North Africa, with new-found respectability and a dead brother-in-law to cope with. Appointed to a post in the religious hierarchy--keeper of the city's sacred geese--Davis's imperial Roman sleuth soon finds himself caught up in the murder of a member of one of the sacred brotherhoods and the disappearance of the most likely new candidate for the order of vestal virgins. His wife's brother tripped over the first of these and he himself was approached by the virgin, a small, frighteningly upper-class girl, and asked to help with her fears that one of her family meant her harm. Davis's command of the complexities of Roman society and attitudes has rarely been so impressively on display; Falco's world moves between the comic, the tragic and the horrid without missing a beat, or a trick. The portrait of the Emperor Vespasian that has intermittently grown up in the background of these excellent historical thrillers acquires more areas of light and shadow, and the love story of the low-rent public informer Falco and his aristocratic wife Julia becomes more touching. Davis's book
Two For the Lions won the Crime Writers Association Golden Dagger for historical thrillers. --
Roz Kaveney
Product Description
Falco returns home to Rome for his eleventh appearance in this highly popular and successful series. As a reward for his Census work Falco has at last been made an equestrian. But imperial favour coupled with his new duties as Procurator of the Sacred Poultry of the Senate and People of Rome bring their own complications. Not only is he now ensconsed in all the trappings of the Establishment and the state religion but Falco also has a troublesome new partner, Aelianus, to deal with. Private and public business merge as he is sent to investigate the disappearance of a young girl selected to be a Vestal Virgin. Closely watched by his ex-partner Petronius and the vigilies who are just waiting for him to slip up, Falco is sorely determined to solve this mystery.