- Paperback: 390 pages
- Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd (London); New edition edition (3 Jun 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099799618
- ISBN-13: 978-0099799610
- Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 11 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 265,936 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Two For The Lions (Falco 10)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
The further Davies gets into her series of private eye (or, to be precise, public informer) thrillers set in the Rome of Vespasian, the more she learns what it is that she does best. Falco is working for the tax department, investigating used gladiator scams, and stumbles into more murders. The various mysteries here--the stabbing of the arena- lion trained to eat criminals, the murder of a famous gladiator generally considered past his prime--are solved elegantly enough and with a genial ruthlessness appropriate to the period in which they are set.
Davies never forgets that this society rests on the backs of slaves and has a taste for bloodshed which even we might consider excessive. But what we read Davies for is partly for the continuing soap opera of on-the-make Falco, his upper-class wife Helena and their variously rackety, lowlife or snobbish connections, and partly for her simply wonderful knowledge of how things worked. We learn, for example, a lot about the wild- beast trade and provincial resentments in a North Africa which the Romans still suspect are more Carthaginian than not; Davies's novels are entertaining and informative, and leave one wanting more.--Roz Kaveney
Product Description
Lumbered with working alongside reptilian Chief Spy Anacrites, Falco has hit upon the perfect plan - offering his services as a tax collector with draconian powers to Vespasian and Titus in conducting the 'great Census' of AD73. If he does well, his fee will finally allow him to join the middle ranks and wed long-suffering companion Helena Justina. Meanwhile, smoothie landlord Smaractus is suspiciously trying to impress him and, on the domestic front, Falco is needed to trace a relative who has eloped and has a crazy plan for finding an extinct herb. Distracted by the apparent murder of a star man-eating lion, Falco uncovers a bitter rivalry between the gladiators' trainers. When one also ends up dead Falco is forced to investigate. The trail leads to Africa, with Helena Justina and little Julia in tow. . .
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Falco refuses to "lie down with lions"!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Two For The Lions (Paperback)
There's no place like Rome, where all roads lead to, and Marcus Didius Falco, ace Roman Sleuth, finds himself in another dilemma in author Lindsey Davis' "Two for the Lions." And Davis has no trouble maintaining her momentum in this latest of the Falco series. This time Falco is working as a tax investigator, appointed by the Emperor Vaspacian himself--but it's no ordinary tax investigation! He's on the trail of fraud committed by the "bestiarii" (the slaugherers) and the "lanistae" (the suppliers for the gladiator games). This "game" is deadly and the affable (but quite competent) Falco finds that dinner for the lions may include himself! His pursuits lead him and his friend Helena to Tripoli--seems simple enough but first Falco has to render aid to Helena's youngest brother, who seems caught in the middle! Riddled with bits of humor as well as first-form suspense, "Two for the Lions" also offers history-with-an-exciting-twist. In addition, Davis doesn't hesitate to take pot shots at the local bureaucracy, and politics, society (a real "Roman a clef"!). And she is sure not to disappoint her "legions" of fans!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
In which gladiators and lions are killed, but not in the arena ...,
By
This review is from: Two For The Lions (Paperback)
This is the tenth 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.
The book begins in December AD73. Falco and the patrician Helena Justina, who is now the mother of his daughter, consider themselves husband and wife by virtual of an old law, providing for the Roman equivalent of a so called "common law marriage" which says that if two people who live together have declared themselves married, they are. Nevertheless, Falco feels uncomfortable at having involved senator's daughter Helena in such an irregular arrangement which the stuffier elements of Roman society would see as a disgrace to her. (And I dare say you can forgive a man a little insecurity when the son of the Emperor was sniffing around his girl a few books ago.) So he wants to make a fully honest woman of Helena with a proper wedding, and needs the money to join the Equestrian (middle class) order to be allowed to do so. So he goes along with a scheme to earn the necessary money by working with his old enemy Anacrites, the Chief Spy, as inspectors checking tax returns as part of a census. Helena manages to get Falco and Anacrites the job through her friendship with the Emperor's mistress, Caenis (a real historial figure, about whom Lyndsey Davis has written a non-Falco novel, "The Course of Honour.") But Falco and Anacrites have barely started on their census investigation, when the first person they audit, a supplier of dangerous animals and gladiators for the arena, is interrupted with the news that his star lion has been found dead in its cage with a broken spear in its side. Next a famous gladiator ends up dead. Something is not right in the arena. The trail of investigation leads to North Africa, where Falco, Anacrites, and Falco's brother-in-law find themselves in a situation where at least one of them is almost certain to be "lionised" in the most painful sense of the word ... I initially tried this series because I had enjoyed the "Cadfael" mediaeval detective stories by Ellis Peters. 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 either the Cadfael or Thraxas 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 book 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 (forthcoming) I have read and can warmly recommend all of these up to and including Alexandria.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Probably the Best Yet,
By
This review is from: Two For The Lions (Paperback)
This is the tenth novel in the mystery series featuring Marcus Didius Falco, an informer and sleuth in Rome at the time of Vespasian. A series of books that have become hugely popular, so much so that the author is now at the forefront of historical mystery writers. It was probably a stroke of genius on her part to have novels that are extremely well researched and contain all the elements that would be and should be found in the Roman world of circa AD70, but to have a lead character who has the vocabulary of a present day New York cop. In this the tenth novel Falco and Helena Justina now have a baby girl (Three Hands in the Fountain)
It is AD73 and the Emperor Vespasian has come up with a good idea for making money. Why not hold a census, after all if the senate know who everyone is and where they live it will be much easier to impose taxes on them. Falco and Partner become Censors. Well someone has to do it. There job is to investigate fraudulent claims, a messy, but lucrative business. Unfortunately for Falco his `partner' is none other than Anacrites, a no good low life and palace spy. While investigating the people who run the gladiator schools and wild beast shows, Falco is involved in the mysterious death of a lion, an escaped leopard and a dead gladiator. There is much rivalry among the men who organise the vast games in Rome. It is a cut throat world where life is cheap and killing a man comes as second nature to many of the people involved in Falco's latest case.
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