Saturnalia (Falco 18) [Hardcover]

'Like visiting old friends in a familiar and endearing, if sometimes bizarre, environment. Jokes and skulduggery crowd the pages', Guardian .'Every book in this series is a delight... fans will snap it up. Highly recommended', Library Journal .'Falco wisecracks his way through the empire's sleazy underside...Davis' crimes are wickedly convoluted - real fun', Time Magazine

Falco wisecracks his way through the empire's sleazy underside...Davis' crimes are wickedly convoluted - real fun

The Eighteenth in the best loved and bestselling Falco series

The top ten bestseller

It is the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. The days are short, the nights are for wild parties. A general has captured a famous enemy of Rome, and brings her home to adorn his Triumph as a ritual sacrifice. The logistics go wrong; she acquires a mystery illness - then a young man is horrendously murdered and she escapes from house arrest.

Marcus Didius Falco is pitted against his old rival, the Chief Spy Anacrites, in a race to find the fugitive before her presence angers the public and makes the government look stupid. Falco has other priorities, for Helena's brother Justinus has also vanished, perhaps fatefully involved once more with the great lost love of his youth.

Against the riotous backdrop of the season of misrule, the search seems impossible and only Falco seems to notice that some dark agency is bringing death to the city streets...

It is the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. The days are short, the nights are for wild parties. A general has captured a famous enemy of Rome, and brings her home to adorn his Triumph as a ritual sacrifice. The logistics go wrong; she acquires a mystery illness - then a young man is horrendously murdered and she escapes from house arrest.

Marcus Didius Falco is pitted against his old rival, the Chief Spy Anacrites, in a race to find the fugitive before her presence angers the public and makes the government look stupid. Falco has other priorities, for Helena's brother Justinus has also vanished, perhaps fatally involved once more with the great lost love of his youth.

Against the riotous backdrop of the season of misrule, the search seems impossible and only Falco seems to notice that some dark agency is bringing death to the city streets...

'Lindsey Davis's renowned thrillers are set in first-century Rome in the age of Titus Caesar. They are exciting, witty, and written in a believable historical voice that happens to be as fast-moving and attractively slangy as a modern American thriller' Times

'Even ancient Rome had its Shamuses. Falco wisecracks his way through the empire's sleazy underside to provide amusing lessons on the way crime, greed, and cover-ups were endemic even in 70 AD. Davis's crimes are wickedly convoluted, but Falco's facetious tongue and domestic complications are the real fun' Time Magazine

'Falco is a classic private eye, whose adventures take place in a carefully-drawn but well-know historical period. It is a formula that has attracted Davis a world-wide following. Subtle and witty parallels are drawn between Falco's time and the present. Davis is a very funny writer' TLS

Lindsey Davis has written nineteen novels, beginning with The Course of Honour, the love story of the Emperor Vespasian and Antonia Caenis. 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. Her books are translated into many languages and serialised on BBC Radio 4. Past Chair of the Crimewriters' Association and a Vice President of the Classical Association, she has won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the Dagger in the Library, and a Sherlock award for Falco as Best Comic Detective. She was born in Birmingham but now lives in London.