Lindsey Davis

We first met Flavia Albia, Falco's feisty adopted daughter, in 'The Ides of April'. Albia is a remarkable woman in what is very much a man's world: young, widowed and fiercely independent, she lives alone on the Aventine Hill in Rome and makes a good living as a hired investigator. An outsider in more ways than one, Albia has unique insight into li

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. However, the logistics go wrong.

In the high summer of 77AD, Roman informer Marcus Didius Falco is beset by personal problems. A middle-aged couple who supplied statues to his father, Geminus, have disappeared in mysterious circumstances.

?Rats are always bigger than you expect?? Falco, ancient Rome?s hangdog investigator, hates sharing a cell with a rodent - though being bailed by his old mother is almost as embarrassing. His high-born girlfriend can?t decide if she wants him, and Titus Caesar?s reward for past services is a wet fish. Hoping for a better life, or at least a better apartment, he takes on new clients. On the elegant slopes of the Pincian Hill, three nouveau riche freedmen...

We first met Flavia Albia, Falco's feisty adopted daughter, in 'The Ides of April'. Albia is a remarkable woman in what is very much a man's world: young, widowed and fiercely independent, she lives alone on the Aventine Hill in Rome and makes a good living as a hired investigator. An outsider in more ways than one, Albia has unique insight into li