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When Marcus Didius Falco encounters the young and very pretty Sosia Camillina in the Forum, he senses immediately that there is something amiss. When she confesses that she is fleeing for her life, Falco offers to help her and, in doing so, gets himself mixed up in a deadly plot involving stolen ingots, dangerous and dark political machinations, and, most hazardous of all, one Helena Justina - a brash, indomitable senator's daughter connected to the very traitors that Falco has sworn to expose.

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.

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.

First century Rome is plagued by all the evils the have beset major cities since time immemorial: crime, corruption, squalor, and worst of all, tourists. When a barge full of those entitled creatures arrives in Rome, they hit all the touristy hot-spots (the Amphitheatre, the Capitol, the dodgy bars with dubious entertainments) before departing for the next destination-leaving behind one of their party, dead and floating in the Tiber.

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.

Ten years after the eruption of Vesuvius, the surrounding countryside lies buried and barren. But the destroyed cities and luxury villas on the Bay of Naples are not utterly lost. Flavia Albia and her husband Tiberius Manlius are tasked with restoring one villa and identifying any surviving remains. What they unearth is beyond disturbing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What did he eat last? Whom did he eat, in fact? Lumbered with working alongside reptilian Chief Spy Anacrites, Falco has the perfect plan to make money - he will assist Vespasian in the Emperor's 'Great Census' of AD 73. His potential fee could finally allow him to join the middle ranks and be worthy of long-suffering Helena Justina. Unexpectedly confronted with the murder of a man-eating lion, Falco is distracted from his original task, uncovering a bitter rivalry between the gladiators' trainers.

Some things never change. With his new villa, Falco also gets a timeless headache: building contractors. After the departure of two shady plasterers, a rank odor in the bathhouse soon leads to the discovery of a corpse under the mosaic floor. Should Falco follow the culprits to remote Britannica? Despite the British weather (damp), the inhabitants (barbarians), and the wine (second-rate), Falco takes his whole family and goes. In veritas, Falco has another, secret reason for this exodus.

Full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of the first five Falco novels by Lindsey Davis, starring Anton Lesser as Marcus Didius Falco.

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?

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.

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.

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.