Product Description

In the long, hot Roman Summer of AD 74, Marcus Didius Falco, private informer and spare-time poet, gives a reading for his family and friends. Things get out of hand as usual. The event is taken over by Aurelius Chrysippus, a wealthy Greek banker and patron to a group of struggling writers, who offers to publish Falco's work - a golden opportunity that rapidly palls. A visit to the Chrysippus scriptorium implicates him in a gruesome literary murder so when Petronius Longus, the over-worked vigiles enquiry chief, commissions him to investigate, Falco is foced to accept. Lindsey Davis' twelfth novel wittily explores Roman publishing and banking, taking us from the jealousies of authorship and the mire of patronage, to the darker financial world, where default can have fatal consequences...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #143330 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

About the Author
Lindsey Davis has written twenty 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

happy bibliophile
As with all tales involving Marcus Didius Falco, a very well crafted detective story but set in Rome at the height of its' power. The characters (good, bad and seriously flawed) are well fleshed out so that, with a little imagination, it is possible to inhabit their world, a great deal of modern fiction cannot make such a claim! As one central thread surrounds the killing of a greedy man in circumstances that will ultimately lead to one of the most barbaric punishments this self proclaimed highest of civilised societies meted out, it has a darker edge but is nonetheless thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable.