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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9780312945954
ISBN number: 0312945957
Label: St. Martin's Minotaur
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Minotaur
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 384
Printing Date: April 29, 2008
Publishing house: St. Martin's Minotaur
Release Date: April 29, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 19635
Studio: St. Martin's Minotaur
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Product Description:
It’s 76 A.D. during the reign of Vespasian and the Roman festival of Saturnalia is getting underway. The days are short; the nights are for wild parties. But not for “informer” Marcus Didius Falco. His job is to uncover unwelcome truths and deal with sensitive situations, frequently at the behest of the imperial government. So when a general’s famous female conquest escapes from house arrest—leaving a horrendous murder in her wake—Falco is on the case. If finding a fugitive isn’t enough of a Zeus-like headache, Falco’s wife Helena Justina’s brother has also gone missing. Against the riotous backdrop of the season of misrule and merriment, the search seems impossible. And Falco seems to be the only one who notices that some dark agency is bringing death to the city streets…
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Rated by buyers 
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It's always nice to have the opportunity to visit with old friends, and that's just what Marcus and Helena Justina have become over the years. History the Davis way is so much more exciting than those five years of Latin!
The mysteries in this edition of the Falco chronicle are not quite up to standards set by Tey and Sayers, but they are plausible. The glimpses of Saturnalia customs was quite intriging.
Rated by buyers 
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Falco is once again stuck in the middle of a search for a missing person (Veleda, the priestess character from an earlier book), and also, by almost a sideline, a grisly murder. All of the action takes place during the seven day festivel of Saturnalia, when Romans do a lot of unusual things, and even slaves get to act as masters for a bit. The book has the usual mix of the regular loons and misfits, with a few new ones thrown in for good measure. No one is ever going to mistake this series for great literature, but I enjoy these works very much, and the humour gives me a funny relief from the daily grind.Keep them coming!
Rated by buyers -
1st book came with a printing flaw but received the replacement book within 3 days... and I was even notified when the book I returned was received by you! Thanks Amazon... I have never had a complaint about the services I have received from you!
Rated by buyers -
This is the eighteenth and currently (June 2008) most recent in a series of excellent detective stories set in Vespasian's Roman Empire and featuring the informer Marcus Didius Falco. Informers in ancient Rome were something between a private detective and a government spy.
It is AD76, at the start of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. Falco finds out that a figure from his past - and more particularly, his brother-in-law's past - has been brought to Rome to play the supporting role in a Roman Triumph followed by the starring role in an execution ...
In the fourth book in the series, "The Iron Hand of Mars" set five years before, Marcus Didius Falco had been sent on an undercover mission to the wilds of Germany, an area which the Roman Empire had definately not managed to pacify. The mission led Falco, with his then girlfriend Helena Justina (now his wife), and her brother Camillus, to the beautiful but sinister tribal prophetess Veleda, and Camillus promptly fell in love with her.
Back in 71AD, Falco had brokered a deal with Veleda: she would stop inciting the German tribes to attack the Roman Empire, the Empire would leave her alone. Five years on , Veleda may or may not have kept her side of the bargain, but an ambitious and incompetent governor decides to boost his prestige by tricking Veleda into coming to Rome as a hostage, with the intention of presenting her capture as a great victory and having her executed. The governor then goes off on holiday without making adequate arrangements for Veleda's security, and - surprise surprise - on hearing what is actually planned for her, she escapes.
As one of the few Roman officials who has actually met the lady, Falco is charged with recapturing her and given the doubtful assistance of a dozen legionaries who escorted her from Germany to Rome - who are billeted on Falco's home with the instruction "you will have to pretend that they are your relatives." And all this during a festival dedicated to mischief ...
I tried this series because I had enjoyed Ellis Peter's "Brother Cadfael" detective stories. Where Cadfael is excellent, Falco is brilliant. Ellis Peters herself (or to use her real name, Edith Pargeter) said of the early books of the series, 'Lindsey Davis continues her exploration of Vespasian's Rome and Marcus Didius Falco's Italy with the same wit and gusto that made "The Silver Pigs" such a dazzling debut and her rueful, self-deprecating hero so irresistibly likeable.'
Funny, exciting, and based on a painstaking effort to re-create the world of the early Roman empire between 70 and 76 AD.
If you have met and enjoyed either the Cadfael or Thraxas series, this is even better.
It isn't absolutely essential to read these stories in sequence, as the mysteries Falco is trying to solve are all self-contained stories and each can stand on its own. Having said that, there is some ongoing development of characters and relationships and I think reading them in the right order does improve the experience.
The full Falco series, in chronological order, consists at the moment of:
The Silver Pigs
Shadows in Bronze
Venus in Copper
The Iron Hand of Mars
Poseidon's Gold
Last Act in Palmyra
Time to Depart
A Dying Light in Corduba
Three Hands in the Fountain
Two for the Lions
One Virgin Too Many
Ode to a Banker
A Body in the Bath house
The Jupiter Myth
The Accusers
Scandal taks a Holiday
See Delphi and Die
Saturnalia
I have read and can warmly recommend all of these.
Rated by buyers -
The most surprising aspect of this almost perfect mystery is that it is the eighteenth in the Marcus Didius Falco series. Some series lose focus. Some fictional heroes are useless once matrimony and children occur. Happily for the reader, that is not true here.
An enemy of Rome is on the loose, a wild priestess of unconquered Germany. Falco knows her from one of his foreign missions and is one of the few men in Rome who could recognize her. Falco has been ordered by the Emperor to track her down by the end of the Saturnalia festival. However, if Falco knows what's good for him, he'll find her sooner--his brother-in-law who may have once had an affair with the priestess has also disappeared. The wrath of the Emperor pales beside the anger of Falco's wife and in-laws.
Falco also needs to find a suitable gift for his wife, cope with the clamour of his vast extended family and find out who dumped the head of young Gratianus Scaeva in the fountain. The enterprising twists in the mystery compete with the engaging comic turns of a Roman family celebrating an extended holiday. Historical, yes, but also hysterical. Keep your eye on the turnip.
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