Lindsey Davis
"There are rules for private informers accepting a new case. Never take on clients who cannot pay you. Never do favors for friends. Don't work with relatives. If, like me, you are a woman, keep clear of men you find attractive."
"Will I never learn?"
In ancient Rome, the number of slaves was far greater than that of free citizens. As a result, often the people Romans feared most were the "enemies at home," the slaves under
...Sharing a ewer of Spanish red with his old friend and new partner Petronius Longus, Marcus Didius Falco is on the spot when a man cleaning the local fountain makes a gruesome discovery: a human hand that suggests its owner met a terrifying fate. Naturally, Falco and Petro, formerly of the Vigiles, want to seize on it as their first big case. The officials of Rome, however, prefer to hush up the incident, since a population that riots at the drop
...The Silver Pigs is the classic novel that introduced readers around the world to Marcus Didius Falco, a private informer with a knack for trouble, a tendency for bad luck, and a frequently inconvenient drive for justice.
When Marcus Didius Falco encounters the young and very pretty Sosia Camillina in the Forum, he senses immediately that there is something amiss. When she confesses that she is fleeing for her life, Falco offers to
...9) Saturnalia
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
...10) Venus in Copper
Rome, AD 71. Marcus Didius Falco is desperate to leave the notorious Lautumiae prison—though being bailed out by his mother is a slight indignity.
Things go from bad to worse when a group of nouveau riche ex-slaves hire him to outwit a fortune-hunting redhead, whose husbands have a habit of dying accidentally, leaving him up against a female contortionist, her extra-friendly snake, indigestible cakes, and rent racketeers. All the while
...14) Poseidon's Gold
After six months in wild Germania, imperial gumshoe Marcus Didius Falco is back in Rome sweet Rome—but his apartment has been ransacked. And although he desperately needs 400,000 sesterces in order to marry his aristocratic love, Helena, his only client is his mother, who insists that he find out whether the scandalous claims against his dead brother, Festus, are true.
Then the chief tarnisher of Festus' good name is murdered, and Marcus
...15) The Third Nero
Intrigue—and possibly treason—swirl around the hall of power in Rome when yet another Nero pretender emerges to challenge the Emperor.
In the year AD 90, following the Saturninus revolt in Germany, the Emperor Domitian has become more paranoid about traitors and dissenters around him. This leads to several senators and even provincial governors facing charges and being executed for supposed crimes of conspiracy and insulting the
...This novel in the acclaimed Marcus Didius Falco series finds the first-century detective confronting Roman legal forces that may just destroy him—and his family.
Fresh from a trip to far-flung Londinium in Britain, Falco needs to reestablish his presence in Rome. A minor role in the trial of a senator entangles him in the machinations of two powerful lawyers. The senator is convicted but then dies, apparently by suicide. It may have
...It's the first century AD, and Marcus Didius Falco, ancient Rome's favorite son and sometimes palace spy, has just been dealt a lousy blow from the gods: the beautiful, high-born Helena Justina has left him in the dust. So when the Emperor Vespasian calls upon him to investigate an act of treason, Falco is more than ready for a distraction. Disguised as an idle vacationer in the company of his best friend Petronius, Falco travels from the Isle
...Rome, August AD 89. Flavia Albia, the daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken up her father's former profession as an informer. On a typical day, it's small cases—cheating spouses, employees dipping into the till—but this isn't a typical day. Her beloved, the plebeian Manlius Faustus, has recently moved in and decided that they should get married in a big, showy ceremony as part of beginning a proper domestic life together. Also,
...20) Alexandria
In first-century-AD Rome, during the reign of Vespasian, Marcus Didius Falco works as a private "informer," often for the emperor, ferreting out hidden truths and bringing villains to ground. But even informers take vacations with their wives, so in AD 77, Falco and his wife, Helena Justina, with others in tow, travel to Alexandria, Egypt. But they aren't there long before Falco finds himself in the midst of nefarious doings—when the librarian
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