Showing results by author "Lindsey Davis" in All Categories

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.

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 of Capreae to Neapolis and all the way to the great city of Pompeii.

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 Falco tries to lure Helena Justina to live with him.

A man falls to his death from the Tarpeian Rock, which overlooks the Forum from the Capitoline Hill in ancient Rome. While it looks like a suicide, one witness swears that she saw it happen and that he was pushed. Normally, this would attract very little official notice, but this man happened to be in charge of organizing the imperial triumphs demanded by the emperor. Normally, the investigation would be under the auspices of her new(ish) husband, but worried about his stamina following a long recovery, private informer Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, steps in.

I was just a freelance hero doing his best in a hard world.' The spirit of adventure calls Falco on a new spying mission for the Emperor Vespasian to the untamed East. He's picking 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. A dangerous brush with the Brother, the sinister ruler of Nabataean Petra, sends Falco and his girlfriend Helena on a fast camel-ride to Syria.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Balbinus Pius, the most notorious gangster in Emperor Vespasian's Rome, has been convicted of a capital crime at last. A quirk of Roman law, however, allows citizens condemned to death "time to depart" and find exile outside the empire. Now, as every hoodlum in Rome scrambles to take over Balbinus' operations, private eye Marcus Didius Falco has to deal with an unprecedented wave of crime - and the sneaking suspicion that Balbinus' exile may not really be so permanent after all.

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.

In 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 emperor. Wanting to root out all the supports of Saturninus from the Senate, one of Domitian's men offers to hire Flavia Alba to do some intelligence work.

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.

First-century Rome is not the quiet, orderly city that it pretends to be. Over on the Quirinal Hill, a naive young girl has died, and there's a suggestion that she was poisoned by a love potion. Looking into the matter, Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, soon discovers the young girl was a handful, and her so-called friends were not as friendly as they should have been. When a friend of Albia's is murdered, things take an even more serious turn.

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.

It's AD 76, during the reign of Vespasian, and Marcus Didius Falco has achieved much in his life. He's joined the equestrian rank, allowing him to marry Helena Justina, the woman he's been keeping time with the past few years. But that doesn't mean all is quiet for Falco, Helena, and their two young daughters. By trade he is an informer, a man who looks into sticky situations, and he's been hired to pry his errant brother-in-law away from a murder investigation.

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.

Marcus was hoping for a relaxed visit to Britannia. But things turn serious at the scene of a murder. King Togidubnus has been stuffed down a bar-room well - leading to a diplomatic situation which Marcus must resolve.

One fine day, A.D. 70, Sosia Camillina quite literally runs into Marcus Didius Falco on the steps of the Forum. It seems Sosia is on the run from a couple of street toughs, and after a quick and dirty rescue, P.I. Falco wants to know why.