Product Description

'Rats are always bigger than you expect...' Marcus Didius Falco, ancient Rome's hangdog investigator, hates sharing a cell with a rodent - though being bailed by his old mother is almost as embarassing. His highborn 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 nouveaux riches freedmen with two flashy wives are under siege by a clever redhead. Severina Zotica has a foul-mouthed parrot, an odd connection with a snake dancer - and a very suspicious past. As he pursues this flame-haired fortune-hunter, Falco finds himself beset by violent rent-racketeers, poisoners, and women without consciences who have dangerous designs on him...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37466 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From the Back Cover
'Rats are always bigger than you expect...'

Rome, AD71. Marcus Didius Falco, Rome’s most hard-done-by private investigator, is desperate to leave the notorious Lautumiae prison – though being bailed from his cell by his mother is a slight indignity...

Things get 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’. Soon he is up against a female contortionist and her extra friendly snake, indigestible cakes and rent racketeers – though those are nothing to his worries about how to cook a giant turbot without a proper oven or a decent fish kettle...

'Another redolent dip into corruption in Vespasian's Rome... original and delightful' Sunday Times

'The most purely entertaining of recent crime novels' New Statesman and Society

'Original and endearing... one can only hope that Falco will be around for as long as Flashman' Time Out

About the Author
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.

Customer Reviews

The best of the first three!!!
Excellent plotting and great (but gradual) character development. Stick with the series at least this far to get the benefits.

I liked the first Falco book but thought the second flagged a bit at the beginning. However the end of the second really picks and leads you straight into the third which was the best for me so far.

I really like Falco he is a 'woman's' idea of an attractive hero and he has strong sense of morality which gets him into lots of trouble.

If I were suddenly to find myself in the scary times of ancient Rome I would look him out immediately.

It is hard to say too much without spoiling any of the excellent plotting that runs through the books so far. Be sure to read them in order though as they really do follow each other on. In a way you cannot really judge them alone as the characters really develop and I think it is nice to see that unfold. Perhaps you should view them as one big book!

Snakes Alive

This is the third novel in the mystery series featuring Marcus Didius Falco, an informer and sleuth. 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 Rome in AD70, but to have a lead character who has the vocabulary of a present day New York cop. In this the third novel Falco is starting to feel like an old friend.

Falco is trying to live down the indignity of being released from jail with the help of his mother of all people and he has accepted a case from some rich private clients. He is also in the middle of trying to entice his girlfriend Helena Justina to come and live with him, though why a senator's daughter, especially one who has just lost their baby, would wish to live in the hovel he calls home is anybody's guess.

When the client Falco is supposedly protecting dies, he is immediately re-hired by none other than the chief suspect. The crux of the matter is that Falco must find and expose a woman, a fortune hunter, who has lost more husbands to accidents than it can be believed possible.

Falco has more than a little excitement during the investigation, including a brush with a female contortionist who has a very interesting snake act. He also has the tremendous honour, or otherwise of a "friendly" visit from Titus Caesar himself, right in the middle of Falco attempting to cook a huge turbot without the aid of every chef's must have, a fish kettle.

Still the best book she has written
Every book she writes is great but this is my personal number one. A book with every twist and turn you could what from a first class mystery, sex, violance, drama Lindsey has got them all into one novel...ENJOY!