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Product Description
Guardian
Like visiting old friends in a familiar and endearing, if sometimes bizarre, environment. Jokes and skulduggery crowd the pages
Time Magazine
Falco wisecracks his way through the empire's sleazy underside...Davis' crimes are wickedly convoluted - real fun
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the eighteenth in a series of excellent detective stories set in Vespasian's Roman Empire and featuring the informer Marcus Didius Falco. Informers in ancient Rome were something between a private detective and a government spy.
It is AD76, at the start of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. Falco finds out that a figure from his past - and more particularly, his brother-in-law's past - has been brought to Rome to play the supporting role in a Roman Triumph followed by the starring role in an execution ...
In the fourth book in the series, "The Iron Hand of Mars" set five years before, Marcus Didius Falco had been sent on an undercover mission to the wilds of Germany, an area which the Roman Empire had definately not managed to pacify. The mission led Falco, with his then girlfriend Helena Justina (now his wife), and her brother Camillus, to the beautiful but sinister tribal prophetess Veleda. Camillus promptly fell in love with her.
Back in 71AD, Falco had brokered a deal with Veleda: she would stop inciting the German tribes to attack the Roman Empire, the Empire would leave her alone. Five years on, Veleda appears to have largely kept her side of the bargain, though accounts differ. However, an ambitious and incompetent governor decides to boost his prestige by tricking Veleda into coming to Rome as a hostage, with the intention of presenting her capture as a great victory and then having her executed. The governor arrives in Rome with his hostage, and then goes off on holiday without making adequate arrangements for Veleda's security, and - surprise surprise - on hearing what is actually planned for her, she escapes.
As one of the few Roman officials who has actually met the lady, Falco is charged with recapturing her and given the doubtful assistance of a dozen legionaries who escorted her from Germany to Rome - who are billeted on Falco's home with the instruction "you will have to pretend that they are your relatives." And all this during a festival dedicated to mischief ...
I tried this series because I had enjoyed Ellis Peter's "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 76 AD.
If you have met and enjoyed the Cadfael series, this is even better.
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:
1) The Silver Pigs
2) Shadows in Bronze
3) Venus in Copper
4) The Iron Hand of Mars
5) Poseidon's Gold
6) Last Act in Palmyra
7) Time to Depart
8) A Dying Light in Corduba
9) Three Hands in the Fountain
10) Two for the Lions
11) One Virgin Too Many
12) Ode to a Banker
13) A Body in the Bath house
14) The Jupiter Myth
15) The Accusers
16) Scandal taks a Holiday
17) See Delphi and Die
18) Saturnalia
19) Alexandria
and expected in 2010:
20) Nemesis.
I have read and can warmly recommend the first 19 books in this series. (Obviously at the time of writing I have not seen "Nemesis" yet.)
It is AD76, at the start of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. Falco finds out that a figure from his past - and more particularly, his brother-in-law's past - has been brought to Rome to play the supporting role in a Roman Triumph followed by the starring role in an execution ...
In the fourth book in the series, "The Iron Hand of Mars" set five years before, Marcus Didius Falco had been sent on an undercover mission to the wilds of Germany, an area which the Roman Empire had definately not managed to pacify. The mission led Falco, with his then girlfriend Helena Justina (now his wife), and her brother Camillus, to the beautiful but sinister tribal prophetess Veleda. Camillus promptly fell in love with her.
Back in 71AD, Falco had brokered a deal with Veleda: she would stop inciting the German tribes to attack the Roman Empire, the Empire would leave her alone. Five years on, Veleda appears to have largely kept her side of the bargain, though accounts differ. However, an ambitious and incompetent governor decides to boost his prestige by tricking Veleda into coming to Rome as a hostage, with the intention of presenting her capture as a great victory and then having her executed. The governor arrives in Rome with his hostage, and then goes off on holiday without making adequate arrangements for Veleda's security, and - surprise surprise - on hearing what is actually planned for her, she escapes.
As one of the few Roman officials who has actually met the lady, Falco is charged with recapturing her and given the doubtful assistance of a dozen legionaries who escorted her from Germany to Rome - who are billeted on Falco's home with the instruction "you will have to pretend that they are your relatives." And all this during a festival dedicated to mischief ...
I tried this series because I had enjoyed Ellis Peter's "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 76 AD.
If you have met and enjoyed the Cadfael series, this is even better.
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:
1) The Silver Pigs
2) Shadows in Bronze
3) Venus in Copper
4) The Iron Hand of Mars
5) Poseidon's Gold
6) Last Act in Palmyra
7) Time to Depart
8) A Dying Light in Corduba
9) Three Hands in the Fountain
10) Two for the Lions
11) One Virgin Too Many
12) Ode to a Banker
13) A Body in the Bath house
14) The Jupiter Myth
15) The Accusers
16) Scandal taks a Holiday
17) See Delphi and Die
18) Saturnalia
19) Alexandria
and expected in 2010:
20) Nemesis.
I have read and can warmly recommend the first 19 books in this series. (Obviously at the time of writing I have not seen "Nemesis" yet.)
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This the 18th Falco Novel by Lindsay Davis is as good as, if not better, than all the others. Davis writing continues to enthral and entertain, and Falco's antics have you wondering one minute and laughing out loud the next. The storyline revolves around one missing German woman and one brother/brother-in-law who has been kidnapped. It is the Saturnalia holiday and the whole of Rome has gone mad. getting up to antics that would get them arrested any other time of the year. This leads to a very entertaining story, and I would recommend anyone to read it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Millions of readers will need no introduction to Marcus Didius Falco, streetwise but upwardly-mobile "private informer" in Rome during the time of the Flavian dynasty of emperors. Lindsay Davis's sleuth has starred in an extensive series of novels that have seen his personal, professional, and social development and introduced us to his culture and to an increasing range of friends, contacts, and enemies. The books are entertaining well-crafted stories that let the reader get to know the characters while learning something of the culture they live in, some aspects of it so like our own, some shockingly different.
This story is set during Saturnalia, the Roman winter festival, a time of parties, gift-giving, family dinners, family quarrels, general tumult and a growing wish for it all to be over. Falco has a potentially lucrative commission from the palace, to recapture an escaped state prisoner. The situation is complicated by the fact that the prisoner is a German priestess who has "a past" with both Falco and his brother-in-law/assistant who has also mysteriously disappeared...
Added to the mix are a death for which priestess may have been responsible, a clutch of mutually-antagonistic doctors, the usual palace politicos and unhelpful functionaries, a serial killer apparently targeting homeless people, family worries, and the traditional hassles of the "season of misrule", making a rich complex tale. It is by turns witty and entertaining and surprisingly dark, but it's always engrossing. Definitely one of the better Falcos.
This story is set during Saturnalia, the Roman winter festival, a time of parties, gift-giving, family dinners, family quarrels, general tumult and a growing wish for it all to be over. Falco has a potentially lucrative commission from the palace, to recapture an escaped state prisoner. The situation is complicated by the fact that the prisoner is a German priestess who has "a past" with both Falco and his brother-in-law/assistant who has also mysteriously disappeared...
Added to the mix are a death for which priestess may have been responsible, a clutch of mutually-antagonistic doctors, the usual palace politicos and unhelpful functionaries, a serial killer apparently targeting homeless people, family worries, and the traditional hassles of the "season of misrule", making a rich complex tale. It is by turns witty and entertaining and surprisingly dark, but it's always engrossing. Definitely one of the better Falcos.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Falco
Love Lindsey Davis books, hope she keeps writing Falco novels for years to come, have read them all, waiting for the next one
Published 3 months ago by Judith
Good novel that doesn't establish a firm sense of place.
Saturnalia (Falco 18)
This is my first Falco mystery so I have joined the series rather late, maybe I should have read some of the earlier ones first. Read more
This is my first Falco mystery so I have joined the series rather late, maybe I should have read some of the earlier ones first. Read more
Published on 13 Sep 2009 by pointone
Festival fun
An intriguing concept - placing crime detection within the context of a Roman festival which appeared to be a bizarre cross between Christmas and Mischief Night, Saturnalia is... Read more
Published on 8 April 2009 by Daniel Park
Not one of her best
This is an entertaining enough read in the traditional Davis style: improbable amounts of action interspersed with huge quantities of background detail, this time mainly concerning... Read more
Published on 4 Jun 2008 by Graham R. Hill
Great Roman Romp
It is many years since I have read a novel about Marcus Didius Falco, Roman PI. This is not due to any lack on the author's part, just that I've been wandering in other pastures... Read more
Published on 4 May 2008 by Hamstead
Hail Falco!!
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. Read more
Published on 14 April 2008 by J. Chippindale
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