Showing results by author "Lindsey Davis" in All Categories

Lindsey Davis’ Master and God is a vastly entertaining historical novel set in the reign of the Emperor Domitian in first-century Rome. It is on the one hand a love story between Gaius Vinius Clodianus, a valiant but reluctant member of the Praetorian Guard, whose military career is as successful as his marital history is disastrous, and Flavia Lucilla, daughter of a freed slave and hairdresser to the ladies of the imperial household. A devastating fire in Rome brings them together....

Decades earlier Appius Tranquillus Surus wrote his will: it freed his slaves and bequeathed his businesses to them. He left an orchard to the Prisci, a family he was friendly with, on the condition that his freedmen could still take its harvest. The convoluted arrangement has led to a feud between the two families, each of which has its own internal strife. Endless claims and counterclaims lead to violence and even death. Lawyers have given up in exasperation as the case limps on. The original will has disappeared, along with a falsified codicil - and might there be another one?

Flavia Albia, daughter and successor of private informer Marcus Didius Falco is twiddling her thumbs with no clients during the December festival of Saturnalia. But that doesn't mean all is quiet. Her husband Tiberius and the Fourth Cohort are battling organized crime interests that are going to war over the festival nuts. A series of accidental poisonings, then bloody murders of rival nut-sellers, and finally a gruesome warning to Tiberius from the hidden criminal powers to back off.

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 been a legal move to protect his heirs; Falco is hired to prove it was murder. As he shows off his talents in the role of advocate, Falco exposes himself to a tangle of upper-class secrets and powerful elements in Rome's legal hierarchy that may have unintended - if not fatal - consequences.

Marcus Didius Falco and his laddish friend Petronius find their local fountain has been blocked - by a gruesomely severed human hand. Soon other body parts are being found in the aqueducts and sewers. Public panic overcomes official indifference, and the Aventine partners are commissioned to investigate. Women are being abducted during festivals, and the next Games are only days away.

Can a tough detective possess the soul of a poet? After a public reading brings him rousing applause, Falco receives an offer to have his work published. But his ego takes a beating when the banker Chrysippus demands payment for putting the verse on papyrus. Hell hath no fury like an author scorned, and when Chrysippus turns up murdered - in the library, no less - it's poetic justice. Appointed the official investigator, Falco's soon up to his stylus in outraged writers and shifty bankers.

Surprisingly, nobody is poisoned at the Society of Olive Oil Producers banquet; the attempted murder of Rome's chief spy occurs immediately afterward. Suspicion falls, quick as the Italian night, on the dinner's sinuous dancer, a lady who has already left for Corduba, Spain. Naturally, Marcus Didius Falco, the Philip Marlowe of Roman detectives, is dispatched to follow her. But he has pledged to stay with Helena, his pregnant, patrician wife, until she gives birth.

In the first century AD, during Domitian's reign, Flavia Albia is ready for a short break from her family. So in July she returns to Rome, leaving them at their place on the coast. Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, who is now retired as private informer, has taken up her father's former profession, and it's time to get back to work. The first order of business, however, is the corpse found in a chest sent as part of a large lot to be sold by the Falco family auction house.

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 their own roofs. Because of this, Roman law decreed that if the head of a household was murdered at home, and the culprit wasn't quickly discovered, his slaves - all of them, guilty or not - were presumed responsible and were put to death...without exception.

Nothing's certain except death and taxes. Catching tax evaders for Emperor Vespasian looks like a plum position for Marcus Didius Falco, who has teamed up with his old boss, Anacrites, the crotchety chief spy of Rome. Soon, however, Falco is bogged down in bureaucracy, stuck at his stylus, and longing for a good murder to investigate. He gets one when someone kills Leonidas, the empire's official executioner.

Flavia Albia is the adopted daughter of Marcus Didius Falco and Helena Justina. From her mother, she learned how to blend in at all levels of society; from her father, she learned the tricks of their mutual professional trade. But her wits and (frequently) sharp tongue are hers alone. Now, working as a private informer in Rome during the reign of Domitian, Flavia has taken over her father’s old ramshackle digs at Fountain Court in the Surbura district, where she plies her trade with energy, determination, and the usual Falco luck.

Four novella-length stories written to illuminate Lindsey Davis's unparalleled output of the last 30 years, with an introduction written and narrated by the author.

In the sacred grove of Julius Caesar, something deadly stirs in the undergrowth - a serial killer, who haunted the gardens for years, has claimed another victim - in Lindsey Davis' next historical mystery, The Grove of the Caesars. At the feet of her adoptive father, renowned private informer Marcus Didius Falco, Flavia Albia learned a number of important rules. First and foremost - always keep one's distance from the palace, nothing good comes from that direction. But right behind it - murder is the business of the Vigiles, best to leave them to it.

The spirit of adventure calls Marcus Didius Falco on a new spying mission for Emperor Vespasian to the untamed East. He picks up extra fees from his old friend, Thalia the snake dancer, as he searches for Sophrona, her lost water organist. With the chief spy, Anacrites, paying his fare, Falco knows anything can go wrong.

Marcus Didius Falco is about to get involved in a nasty noir crime, involving gangsters, gladiators, and romance. For Falco, a relaxed visit to his wife Helena's relatives in Britain suddenly turns serious. He and his family are staying in London when Falco is summoned to the scene of a murder. The victim, Verovolcus, was a renegade with ties to Roman crime magnates operating in London, but he was also close to King Togidubnus. So when he is discovered dead, stuffed headfirst down a well, a tricky diplomatic situation develops that Falco must defuse.

Marcus Didius Falco discovers that rank brings problems, the most gruesome of which is a corpse buried under the tiles of his new bath house. The contractors have fled to Britain where, as the Fates have it, Falco is ordered. A local chief and ally of the Romans is having a Palace built by the Emperor Vespasian. However, the project is running late, and fatal accidents keep happening. Falco, troubleshooting for the Emperor, is without an ally and now next on the list for assassination.

In the first century, under Domitian's reign, strange and brutal goings on are nothing new in Rome. Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken over her father's business as a private informer but she tries to shy away from the brutal, the complicated, and the political—because nothing good comes of any of them. Unfortunately, she's not very good at turning them down. This time a commission shows up on her doorstep—someone is staging brutal murders in some of the most beautiful buildings in Rome, each staging different.

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 becomes the prime suspect.

When Germanic troops in the service of the empire begin to rebel and a Roman general disappears, Emperor Vespasian turns to the one man he can trust: Marcus Didius Falco, a private informer whose rates are low enough that even the stingy Vespasian is willing to pay them. To Falco, an undercover tour of Germany is an assignment from Hades. On a journey that only a stoic could survive, Falco meets with disarray, torture, and murder. His one hope: In the northern forest lives a powerful Druid priestess who perhaps can be persuaded to cease her anti-Rome activities and work for peace.

Men are fools for love. And that includes Marcus Didius Falco. To please his beloved, the tough shamus has become Procurer of the Sacred Poultry (i.e., babysitter of the temple geese). It's steady work and good pay, but Falco is soon restless. So when a beautiful child, chosen to enter the secret order of Vestal Virgins, disappears, he grabs the case. He quickly discovers that greed and religious fervor are only a thread away from madness.