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…
Review
Marcus Didius Falco, everyone's favorite ancient Roman gumshoe, is back in another cheeky mystery. He's had the nerve to read his own poems in public, which leads more or less directly to his being called upon to investigate the murder of a publisher a task he is compelled to undertake in part because he himself is a suspect. Jupiter help him, that puts him up against some of the toughest customers he has yet to encounter: authors. Davis hastily assures us that her publisher and colleagues are nothing like the slimy fellows so cheerfully portrayed here, but she has a wicked eye for the worst that the writing profession can bring out in a soul. As usual, Davis flings out a host of memorably unappetizing characters, raucous family encounters, and a sharp little mystery, wrapped up with a nice, unexpected twist at the end: the culprit really was under everyone's nose all along but with unexpected motives. As much fun as the rest of the series and a bit tauter than the last few; for all mystery collections. Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Author Biography
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.
